Rate My Professor Suzana Herculano-Houzel

Suzana Herculano-Houzel is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Vanderbilt University, with joint appointments in Biological Sciences and as Associate Director for Communications, Vanderbilt Brain Institute. In Psychology, her research centers on comparative neuroanatomy, exploring the cellular composition, morphology, evolution, metabolic costs, sleep needs across species, and feeding times of brains, and how these factors interrelate. She pioneered the isotropic fractionator method, enabling precise quantification of neurons and non-neuronal cells, which revealed that the human brain contains approximately 86 billion neurons, with 16 billion in the cerebral cortex, overturning prior estimates. Her studies have quantified neuronal scaling rules in rodents, primates, birds, carnivorans, and even theropod dinosaurs, showing primate-like telencephalic neuron numbers in T. rex and exceptional neuron densities in avian forebrains comparable to primates.

Herculano-Houzel received a Bachelor of Science in biology/genetics from Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (1992), a Master’s in Neuroscience from Case Western Reserve University (1995), and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Université Pierre et Marie Curie (1998), followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Max-Planck-Institute for Brain Research (1999). Before joining Vanderbilt in 2016, she served as Associate Professor (2005-2016) and Head of the Laboratory of Comparative Neuroanatomy (2004-2016) at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Assistant Professor there (2002-2005), and Visiting Scientist at the Museum of Life, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (1999-2002). Notable publications include “The human brain in numbers: a linearly scaled-up primate brain” (Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2009), “Birds have primate-like numbers of neurons in the forebrain” (PNAS, 2016), “The remarkable, yet not extraordinary, human brain as a scaled-up primate brain” (PNAS, 2012), and “Theropod dinosaurs had primate-like numbers of telencephalic neurons” (Journal of Comparative Neurology, 2023). She authored “The Human Advantage: How Our Brain Became Remarkable” (MIT Press, 2016) and several Portuguese science books. Awards include the 2010 James S. McDonnell Foundation Scholar Award in Understanding Human Cognition, 2008 Jabuti Literature Award (third place), and 2004 José Reis Award honorable mention for science communication. Her findings have reshaped understandings of brain evolution, energetics, and cognitive potential, while her public outreach includes columns, TV hosting, and TED talks.