If Your Pet Bird Doesn’t Have a Neocortex How Come Its So Smart?

Last Updated on April 29, 2025 by Mitch Rezman

Alright, picture this: for ages, we’ve loved parrots. They’re chatty, colorful, and can learn to say embarrassing things at dinner parties. Great pets, right?

But for the longest time, the folks in lab coats basically thought, “Cute, but dumb.”

They looked at parrot brains and went, “Hmm, doesn’t look like *our* fancy mammal brains. No neocortex? Must be mostly basic instinct, like a feathery Roomba.” They even named the bird brain parts in a way that suggested it was all just primitive stuff. Ouch.

This “bird brain” bias meant bird scientists and mammal scientists weren’t really talking – like, for *decades*.

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Imagine the awkward silence at the Neuroscience Christmas party! Finally, around the turn of the millennium, a bunch of smarty-pants scientists (the “Avian Brain Nomenclature Consortium,” bless their jargon-loving hearts) got together and yelled, “HOLD THE PHONE!”

They realized bird brains, while built differently (think messy nuclear apartment building vs. neat layered condo), had parts that did *similar* complex jobs to ours. So, they radically renamed everything, basically admitting, “Oops, our bad. These birds *can* think!” This helped everyone compare notes without getting confused.

Now, among birds, two groups stand out as the certified geniuses: **parrots** and **corvids** (crows, ravens, jays – the cool goths of the bird world). Corvids got studied first, maybe because they were hanging around the scientists’ backyards more often. Parrots, often chilling in more exotic locales, had to wait their turn for the scientific spotlight.

Sure, a few “early birds” (pun intended!) like Ladygina-Kohts, Köhler, and Fischel poked at parrot smarts way back when. But the real MVP for a long time was Irene Pepperberg and her superstar African Grey, **Alex** (short for Avian Learning EXperiment – see, scientists *can* be clever!).

Alex showed the world parrots could handle communication and numbers. Since about 2010, though, parrot research has EXPLODED. Seriously, there have been like 50+ new studies just since 2018! We’re finally catching up.

**So, What’s Going On In Those Feathery Heads?**

Turns out, parrot brains are pretty awesome:

Size Isn’t Everything (But It Helps): Bigger brains relative to body size often mean more smarts. But wait, there’s more…
Densely Packed Noodles: Bird brains, especially the *pallium* (their version of our cortex), are STUFFED with neurons. Like, way more crammed in there than mammal brains. Parrots and corvids have neuron counts similar to *primates*, even with smaller overall heads! Talk about efficiency.
Eco-Friendly Brains: Bonus! Bird neurons sip energy like a Prius, using way less glucose than mammal neurons. Green thinking, literally!
Different Paths to Genius: How’d they get so brainy? Corvids got bigger bodies *and* bigger brains (brains grew faster). Parrots apparently went on a diet, *shrinking their bodies* while keeping the brainpower! This big brain boost happened *after* the dinosaurs checked out, not when birds first learned to fly.
Special Upgrades: Parrot brains have beefed-up areas for:

Fancy Motor Skills: A nucleus called SpM is huge, linking the thinking part to the coordination part (cerebellum). This is probably why they’re so good with their feet and beaks – think ninja-level dexterity. Their cerebellum is also extra wrinkly, good for complex moves.

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Chatty Cathy Circuits: They have the basic song system like other songbirds, PLUS an extra, unique pathway just for learning sounds. Master mimics for a reason!

Handling Stuff: An enlarged area (subpallium) helps process senses, learn movements, and control them – perfect for tricky food puzzles or tool use.

Brainy = Long Life: Big-brained parrots tend to live longer. Smart investment!
Human-Like Genes?: Some parrot genes linked to brainpower show changes similar to those associated with cognitive abilities in humans. Hmm!

Conclusion: Parrot brains are NO JOKE. They’re complex, efficient, packed with processing power, and specially wired for amazing motor skills and vocal learning, putting them right up there with corvids and primates. Definitely *not* “bird brains” in the insulting way!

Okay, So What Have We Learned Lately?

One review basically said, “Yeah, parrots and corvids seem similarly smart, but we need more data!” It pointed out we knew a lot about how parrots solve physical puzzles (like pulling strings to get treats – they’re generally good at the basic version, less so at trickier ones) but way less about their social lives, memory skills (like remembering *where* they left their favorite nut *yesterday*), or if they understand fairness (“Hey, he got a bigger seed!”).

Big gaps remain: we don’t know enough about wild parrots, and most studies use the same few lab superstars. Plus, researchers kind of jumped into testing complex problem-solving before fully understanding the basics, like memory. As the scientists put it, we might have been “putting the cart before the horse” – or maybe, the cracker before the Polly?

Anyway, the field is buzzing now, so stay tuned for more amazing discoveries about our brilliant, feathered friends!

Written by Mitch Rezman and the Windy City Parrot content team