An international team of scientists released a sort of brain cell audit that counters last year’s controversial claims of high Tyrannosaurus Rex intelligence. A 2023 Journal of Comparative Neurology report calculated that the dinosaur's brain held over 3 billion neurons. A new paper in The Anatomical Record calls that an over-estimation.
That 2023 study put T. rex’s intelligence potentially on par with monkeys and suggested the dinosaurs could perhaps use tools and teach social behaviors to their offspring. These intelligence estimates were largely based on neuronal count and conducted by extrapolating the number of neurons that fit into other creatures with similarly shaped skulls — for example, the ostrich.
