Amazing Rats

I had the opportunity to write a post at the new blog of The Scientist magazine, "Naturally Selected".  The post is not about preventive medicine.  Rather, it taps into my neuroscience roots, and discusses the basis of intelligence in animals.  Here's an excerpt:

Ever since the size of our brains outgrew our closest animal relatives, we humans have declared ourselves far smarter than any other creatures in the animal kingdom.  But our big brains, and bigger egos, may underestimate the intelligence of other critters, simply because we’ve been asking the wrong questions. A study published in January in PLoS One shows that if we define intelligence not in terms of communication but in terms of problem-solving, then our animal brethren may be a lot smarter than we’ve given them credit for – starting with the rat.

Read the entire post here.