Luna enjoys cooling off in the river.
Posted on 07/19/2022 9:36:35 AM PDT by Red Badger
A dog’s brain is wired for smell. Now, a new map shows just how extensive that wiring is.
Powerful nerve connections link the dog nose to wide swaths of the brain, researchers report July 11 in the Journal of Neuroscience. One of these canine connections, a hefty link between areas that handle smell and vision, hasn’t been seen before in any species, including humans.
The results offer a first-of-its-kind anatomical description of how dogs “see” the world with their noses. The new brain map is “awesome, foundational work,” says Eileen Jenkins, a retired army veterinarian and expert on working dogs. “To say that they have all these same connections that we have in humans, and then some more, it’s going to revolutionize how we understand cognition in dogs.”
In some ways, the results aren’t surprising, says Pip Johnson, a veterinary radiologist and neuroimaging expert at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine. Dogs are superb sniffers. Their noses hold between 200 million and 1 billion odor molecule sensors, compared with the 5 million receptors estimated to dwell in a human nose. And dogs’ olfactory bulbs can be up to 30 times larger than people’s. But Johnson wanted to know how smell information wafts to brain regions beyond the obvious sniffing equipment.
To build the map, Johnson and colleagues performed MRI scans on 20 mixed-breed dogs and three beagles. The subjects all had long noses and medium heads, and were all probably decent sniffers. Researchers then identified tracts of white matter fibers that carry signals between brain regions. A method called diffusion tensor imaging, which relies on the movement of water molecules along tissue, revealed the underlying tracts, which Johnson likens to the brain’s “road network.”
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...
“nose to wide swaths of the brain”
this is news?
Cokeheads have known about it for a very long time.
This should have been labeled to indicate the areas of the brain dedicated to sniffing dead animals, dog treats, and crotches.
And Dog Butts....................😁
Luna enjoys cooling off in the river.
We play “go find it” almost daily. I take little liver chips and hide them around the house. She is SOOOOO Excited...she is a German Shorthaird pointer/lab mix. 60 pounds...does the pointer thing to perfection
They are dogs.
They wanted to see a dead CAT......................
Yep, sensitive to EMF *outside* visible light.
Or hoping it was still alive so they could dogmanely put it out of its misery.
Cute pup.
LOL. Ain't that the truth! I had one dog that I just couldn't walk because every square inch of everything had to be thoroughly sniffed. With that dog, if I wanted exercise, it was best to walk alone.
Why do dogs love sticking their heads out the window of a moving car, but hate when you blow in their face?
My sister had a dog that wasn’t trained for it but was a great sniffer. I would throw a rock into the creek and she would go swim and bring back the same rock. When I first did it I thought it was so funny, thinking she was just a stupid dog and bringing me back any rock on the cobbly stream bed. It took me numerous throws until she brought back what appeared to be the SAME rock that I had thrown. So I made sure to pick my rocks out so I could remember them. Yep - every single time she would bring back the rock I had thrown!
It didn’t take me too long when I was out fishing in the boat with her to realize when I was in a good spot to fish - she would get antsy and excited and looking and sniffing at the water! After a day of fishing I figured it out, so afterwards I wouldn’t spend an hour fishing at a usual spot unless she acted up.
A few years ago my black labs would sniff my Ex’s knees whenever she visited. They were quite persistent and it annoyed her to the point that she Googled it. “You have cancer” was one of the top results. So she went to the doc for an exam and sure enough a lump was detected. Further testing indicated she had breast cancer. A year of treatment and she was cured. The dog’s have been on half rations ever since.
Amazing dogs. Talk about mixed emotions!
Also...Fish Are Great Swimmers!
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