Suzana Herculano-Houzel
Associate Professor of Psychology | Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN, UNITED STATES
Neuroscientist and international expert in how brain size and structure affect cognition and longevity in animals.
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Biography
What are different brains made of? What is the extent of brain diversity, what are the rules and constraints, how does that happen in evolution, and what difference does it make?
Suzana Herculano-Houzel is interested in comparative neuroanatomy, cellular composition of brains, brain morphology, brain evolution, metabolic cost of body and brain, sleep requirement across species, feeding time, and really interested in how all of these are tied together. Writes about neuroscience and science in general for the public; recently published The Human Advantage: A New Understanding of How Our Brain Became Remarkable (MIT Press, 2016).
Areas of Expertise (8)
Evolution
Neuroscience
Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience
Neurons
Intelligence
Developmental Science
Quantitative Methods
Animal intelligence
Accomplishments (6)
Fall 2019 Public Voices Fellow (professional)
A semester-long program designed to expand Vanderbilt University’s global reach by amplifying the impact of faculty academic research.
LARC-IBRO Travel Award, FALAN (professional)
2012
Scholar Award in Understanding Human Cognition, James McDonnell Foundation (professional)
2010
Carioca of the Year Award (Scientist – Veja magazine) (professional)
2009
Personalities of the Year (Scientist – Época magazine) (professional)
2009
Creative Women Award (Sciences – Criativa magazine) (professional)
2008
Education (3)
Université Pierre: Ph.D., Neuroscience 1999
Case Western Reserve University: M.Sc., Neuroscience 1995
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro: B.Sc., Biology/Genetics 1992
Links (3)
Selected Media Appearances (10)
A First-of-Its-Kind Explainable AI Model Detects Brain Cancer
Psychology Today online
2024-11-23
Primary brain tumors can be subdivided into glial tumors or gliomas, and non-glial tumors. The human nervous system contains neurons and non-neuronal cells called glia. Neurons, also known as nerve cells or neurones, are excitable cells that transmit electrochemical impulses. The human brain consists of roughly 86 billion neurons, according to Vanderbilt University neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel, Ph.D., per her 2012 paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).
Do Crows Possess a Form of Consciousness?
Smithsonian Magazine online
2020-09-30
The crows’ neurons “have activity that represents not what was shown to them, but what they later report...to have seen—whether or not that is what they were shown,” Suzana Herculano-Houzel, a neurobiologist at Vanderbilt University who published an analysis of the study in Science, tells Stat. This secondary layer of processing of the visual stimulus occurs in the time between when the stimulus appears on the screen and when the crow pecks its answer.
Crows Are Self-Aware and 'Know What They Know,' Just Like Humans
Popular Mechanics online
2020-09-28
In an analysis in the same issue of Science, another researcher, Suzana Herculano-Houzel of Vanderbilt University, makes a critique of the study’s hypothesis. The structure being studied, she says, could resemble another structure because of physical properties more than a shared evolution or an indication of extremely early consciousness. The size of the structures matter a great deal, too. “[T]he level of that complexity, and the extent to which new meanings and possibilities arise, should still scale with the number of units in the system,” Herculano-Houzel explains. “This would be analogous to the combined achievements of the human species when it consisted of just a few thousand individuals, versus the considerable achievements of 7 billion today.”
What Was It Like to Be a Dinosaur?
Scientific American online
2024-08-20
Where did T. rex fall on the intelligence spectrum between dim-witted Stegosaurus and tool-using ravens? In a high-profile paper published last fall, neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel of Vanderbilt University suggested that a T. rex was about as smart as a baboon—a startling conclusion because primates, with their large brains, are some of the cleverest animals around. Having spent long hours pondering the way brain volume scales with body size and what this relation means for brain function in extinct dinosaurs and birds, we were intrigued to see the headlines about this study. Superficially, the brain of the tyrant lizard king looks fairly puny compared with its body size. Weighing in at less than a pound, the brain of this six-ton dinosaur is diminutive next to the 11-pound brain of the African elephant, which, despite being the largest living terrestrial mammal has a smaller body than T. rex.
The Tyrannosaurus rex May Have Had More Brains Than You Think
Discover Magazine online
2023-12-12
In a study published in the June 2023 issue of the Journal of Comparative Neurology, Suzana Herculano-Houzel, a neuroscientist and associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University, took a controversial first stab at calculating the neuronal count of several species of dinosaur, including T. rex.
The T. rex may have been a lot smarter than you thought
The Washington Post online
2023-01-09
That’s a level of brain cells similar to that in baboons, potentially making theropods — a group of vicious, two-legged and fast-running dinosaurs that included tyrannosauruses and velociraptors — the “primates of their time,” according to Suzana Herculano-Houzel, a neuroscientist and biologist at Vanderbilt University who wrote the paper.
Pigeon Neurons Use Much Less Energy Than Those of Mammals
Scientific American online
2022-12-01
The finding is “pretty remarkable,” says Vanderbilt University neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel, who worked on the 2016 study but was not involved in the new research. Based on the density disparities between mammal and bird brains, she says, the energy difference is “exactly the math you’d expect.” Birds may have evolved this trait simply to work with their limited energy supply, Herculano-Houzel adds, rather than to accommodate advanced processing needs.
What Elephants’ Brains Reveal About Their Dexterous Trunks
The Wall Street Journal
2022-10-26
Suzana Herculano-Houzel, a neuroscientist at Vanderbilt University who has studied elephant brains but wasn’t involved in the study, said the study was an important if limited addition to a scant body of research into the elephant brain.
Why Some Animals Can Tell More From Less
WIRED
2022-01-25
Let’s not mince words: To quickly count the number of neurons per milligram of brain, a researcher has to liquefy it. (“She calls it ‘brain soup,’” Cantlon says of neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel of Vanderbilt University, who developed the method. “It is literally melting it in chemicals.”) In this case, the researchers used data sets from Herculano-Houzel’s lab, pulling published figures on neuron density for 12 species. Here, the correlation was clear: Neuron density had the biggest effect on quantitative sensitivity among all metrics tested, including traits like home range size and social group size. Since neuron density is largely constrained by a species’ genes, the team sees that as bonus proof that evolution plays a huge role.
The real reason humans are the dominant species
BBC News online
2021-03-27
As neurons are added to the mammalian brain, intelligence increases exponentially, says Suzana Herculano-Houzel, a neuroscientist based at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.
Selected Articles (3)
Embodied (embrained?) cognitive evolution, at last!
Comparative Cognition & Behavior ReviewsSuzana Herculano-Houzel
2018 It is time that brain size stops serving as a black box-type property of brains, "somehow" related to variations in cognitive performance across species. We now know that hidden behind similar brain structure sizes are diverse numbers of neurons and fibers that can differ in function according to experience and environment and that species differences are not a continuation of individual differences.
Longevity and sexual maturity vary across species with number of cortical neurons, and humans are no exception
The Journal of Comparative NeurologySuzana Herculano-Houzel
2018 Maximal longevity of endotherms has long been considered to increase with decreasing specific metabolic rate, and thus with increasing body mass. Using a dataset of over 700 species, here I show that maximal longevity, age at sexual maturity and post‐maturity longevity across bird and mammalian species instead correlate primarily, and universally, with the number of cortical brain neurons.
You Do Not Mess with the Glia
NeurogliaSuzana Herculano-Houzel, Sandra Dos Santos
2018 Vertebrate neurons are enormously variable in morphology and distribution. While different glial cell types do exist, they are much less diverse than neurons. Over the last decade, we have conducted quantitative studies of the absolute numbers, densities, and proportions at which non-neuronal cells occur in relation to neurons.
