News Neuroscience

How smart was T. rex?

A new neuron census stirs debate over the dinosaur’s brainpower

T. rex illustration

Calculating how many neurons dinosaurs like T. rex had helps scientists think about the ancient reptile's lifestyle.

FOTOKITA/istock/Getty Images Plus

By Freda Kreier

How brainy was Tyrannosaurus rex? It depends on who you ask.

Last year, the iconic Cretaceous dinosaur received the glow-up of a lifetime when Suzana Herculano-Houzel, a neuroscientist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, calculated that the predator had 3.3 billion neurons in one part of the forebrain alone. The discovery put T. rex’s forebrain on par with modern baboons’.