2026年10月22日，德国蒂宾根大学Philipp Schmidbauer等科学家在《科学》（Science）发表研究，揭示了鸟类大脑中的超快速决策。

知觉决策在哺乳动物中已有充分研究，但其在其他脊椎动物中的运作方式仍不清楚。研究人员表明，小嘴乌鸦（Corvus corone）在经典视觉运动辨别任务中以前所未有的速度做出审慎决策，平均约235毫秒即报告选择，这大约是在猴子或人类中观察到的速度的两倍，且未牺牲准确性。对端脑皮层记录的记录显示，方向选择性神经元早在刺激出现后约70毫秒、响应前约170毫秒就编码即将做出的选择，其渐增活动随感觉证据而变化，并在响应开始时趋于一致。这些发现凸显了鸟类决策回路的非凡效率，这可能是由快速视觉运动控制的演化压力所塑造的。

附：英文原文

Title: Ultrarapid decision-making in an avian brain

Author: Philipp Schmidbauer, Andreas Nieder

Issue&Volume: 2026-10-22

Abstract: Perceptual decision-making is well studied in mammals, but its operation in other vertebrates remains unclear. We show that carrion crows (Corvus corone) make deliberate decisions in a classic visual motion discrimination task with unprecedented speed, reporting choices in approximately 235 milliseconds on average, which is roughly twice as fast as has been observed in monkeys or humans and without sacrificing accuracy. Recordings from the pallial endbrain reveal that direction-selective neurons encode the upcoming choice as early as about 70 milliseconds after stimulus onset and about 170 milliseconds before the response, with ramping activity scaling with sensory evidence and converging at response onset. These findings highlight the extraordinary efficiency of avian decision-making circuitry, possibly shaped by evolutionary pressures for rapid visuomotor control.

DOI: 10.1126/science.aed6459

Source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aed6459