What's on a Dog's Mind

摘要

Dogs may appear to be pleading for a bit of steak, but what are they realty thinking? A team at Emory University is starting to crack that nut by taking brain scans of two nonsedated dogs using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).rnTraining the dogs-a 3-year-old border collie named McKenzie and a 2-year-old mutt named Callie (pictured practicing)-to stay still within an fMRI scanner was the first step. The team then studied the dogs' neural responses to different hand gestures that indicated whether a treat was forthcoming.