Studying bumblebees to learn more about human intelligence and memory

(Phys.org)—A team of researchers at Queen Mary University in the U.K. has found that bumblebees with more “synaptic complexes” in their brains are able to learn new things more quickly and also have better memories than those with fewer of them. In their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B the group describes studying neural connections in individual bee brains and comparing what they found with cognitive abilities.