Study
Brain imaging reveals neuronal circuitry underlying the crow's perception of human faces
Marzluff, John M.; Miyaoka, Robert; Minoshima, Satoshi; Cross, Donna J.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012
Wild-caught crows were shown either a face associated with being trapped or a face associated with being fed, then scanned to see which brain regions had been most active while they looked.
- Studied in
- Corvus brachyrhynchos
- Sample size
- 12 wild-caught American crows
The two faces produced different patterns of activity. Threatening faces engaged regions associated with fear and avoidance learning; caring faces engaged regions linked to motivation and reward.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Crows process human faces through circuitry functionally comparable to the mammalian systems for emotional evaluation of social stimuli.
How NatureHQ reads it
The value of this study is that it moves the face-recognition result from behaviour into anatomy: the birds were not just acting differently, different machinery was running. The comparison with mammals is functional rather than structural — bird and mammal brains are organised very differently — and the sample is small, so it is best read as a strong hint about mechanism rather than a settled map.
- Twelve birds is a small sample for imaging work.
- Captive scanning conditions differ substantially from a free-flying encounter.
- Functional comparison with mammalian circuits relies on interpretation, not on shared structures.
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Published by: Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesPublished in PNAS.
doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1206109109
This reference was resolved automatically against Crossref on 2026-08-11.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-08-09.