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19 - The Brain of the Chimpanzee

The Mind’s Motor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2020

Kevin D. Hunt
Kevin D. Hunt
Affiliation:
Indiana University, Bloomington
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Summary

The extraordinary feats of memory and reasoning that chimpanzees display – both in the wild and in captivity – are generated by an organ scarcely larger than a grapefruit. But while chimpanzee brains are markedly smaller than those of humans, their brain anatomy is so similar that a discourse comparing the two might be little different from this declaration: The chimpanzee brain is a human brain with one-third of the neurons (Herculano-Houzel & Kaas, 2011). In this chapter we will consider the structure of the brain and its function, drawing mostly on research on humans, and we will speculate about the role size plays in how human and chimpanzee brains work (Duvernoy, 1999; Buzsaki, 2006; Schoenemann, 2006).

Type
Chapter
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Chimpanzee
Lessons from our Sister Species
 , pp. 357 - 371
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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