"BRAIN SCANS REVEAL WHAT DOGS ARE THINKING" - Inter-species Communication

"BRAIN SCANS REVEAL WHAT DOGS ARE THINKING"..."Emory University’s Center for Neuropolicy in Atlanta has developed a new way of scanning the brains of alert dogs with the aim of getting a more accurate understanding of how they think. According to the center’s director and lead researcher Gregory Berns:

As far as we know, no one has been able to do this previously. We hope this opens up a whole new door for understanding canine cognition and inter-species communication. We want to understand the dog-human relationship, from the dog’s perspective.

The dog involved in the experiment was trained to walk up to the MRI machine and hold his head still while her brain was scanned. The research is further deepened by analyzing how the dog’s brain patterns change in response to hand signals and vocal cues. This will flesh out insights into canine cognition, social cognition of other species, interspecies communication, and provide a deeper understanding of the human-canine relationship.

Watch the video below for more detail on this experiment...." - http://www.psfk.com/2012/05/brain-scan-dogs.html

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Tom sez - Could this technology be used to find out how dogs can sense someone's sickness?  Dogs can smell cancer before doctors can detect it.  Why can't we figure this out?  Maybe this new tool will help.

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