NC

| EXPLORE | ANIMALS
GETTING INSIDE
FIDO’S HEAD
By Nina Strochlic
When a dog leaped from a helicopter
to accompany the U.S. SEAL team on
the raid of Osama bin Laden’s complex
in 2011, Gregory Berns was inspired. “I
thought, If dogs can jump out of helicopters,
we can train them to go into
an MRI,” he recalls. The next year the
neuroscientist launched the Dog Project
at Emory University, which was the first
to teach dogs to lie still without sedation
in an MRI scanner so their brains can
be studied.
By peering into a dog’s brain, researchers
are able to see how it reacts
to stimuli like hand signals, sounds, and
smells. Activity in the reward center
can show whether dogs prefer human
affection to food (most like both equally),
and which ones may not be fit for duty
as service dogs (if, for example, they get
too anxious or excited with strangers).
Now Berns wants to know how dogs
learn human language: “When a dog
hears a word, is it just an auditory stimulus,
or does it go deeper to have some
sort of meaning?” To find out, he’s spent
a year watching dogs’ brain activity while
they hear familiar and nonsense words.
Because canine brain structures and
processes are potentially as unique and
complex as ours, it will require years of
tests to decipher how they work. “When
we talk about ‘dogs,’ that’s about as descriptive
as talking about ‘people,’ ” says
Berns. “Dogs are just as different from
each other as humans are.”
THE SCIENCE
OF DOGS
Baby Talk Like human
infants, puppies respond
better to highpitched
human speech
than to low-pitched.
Researchers in New
York and France found
that pitch may actually
help puppies learn
words—but by adulthood,
dogs no longer
prefer a higher octave.
In the Groove
Humans and their canine
companions both
Researchers from the
University of Glasgow
playlists for kennel
dogs while monitoring
their stress. Although
music had a calming
soft rock and reggae.
Test Tube Pups
After decades of testing,
researchers at the
Smithsonian Institution
and Cornell University
produced a litter of
pups using in vitro
fertilization. Scientists
hope to apply the technique
to tackle genetic
diseases that dogs and
humans share.
In the Family When it
comes to social intelligence,
toddlers show
patterns more similar
to dogs than to chimpanzees,
even though
chimps are more closely
related to humans. In
some communication
tasks, University of
Ari zona scientists
found that both dogs
and kids performed
better than chimps.
PHOTO: ELKE VOGELSANG