Fish in this subfamily have a high brain to body mass ratio due to an expanded cerebellum (called a gigantocerebellum) used in their electroperception.

[2] Linked to this they are notable for holding the zoological record at around 60% as the brains that consume the most energy as a percentage of the body's metabolic rate of any animal.

[3] However, research published in 1996 in The Journal of Experimental Biology by Göran Nilsson at Uppsala University found that mormyrinae brains utilize roughly 60% of their body O2 consumption.

[1] Unlike mammals, the part of the brain enlarged in mormyrinae fish is the cerebellum[2] not the cerebrum and reflecting this is called a gigantocerebellum.

To detect these fields from those created by other mormyrinae fish, their prey animals, and how their nearby environment distorts them, their skin contains three types of electroreceptors.

[5] This electroperception, however, requires complex information processing in special neurocircuitry since it is dependent upon the ability to distinguish between self-generated and other generated electric fields, and their self-created aspects and their environment modification.