diagram showing the inside of a dog brain
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 ...
diagram showing the inside of a dog brain
In the nose-to-brain connection area, there is another important connection that more people should be aware of...
The Pineal Gland’s connection to the optic nerve, leading to the brain.
I’ll note that the Pineal Gland, located in the center of the brain, consists of rods and cones.
Does this mean that Joe Biden is a dog?
Fascinating!
I get a kick of my dog acting like a weather vane with her nose every time she steps outside, always pointing into the wind. Driving with her head out the window getting high speed scent injections is her favorite thing.
Nothing slows a brisk dog walk more then when a dog begins to sniff.
Dogs can have the sniffing.
I’ll stick with shaking hands.
Well he sure has a nose for sniffing out pre pubescent girls
He’s an old Horn dog...............
AKA, the THIRD EYE........................
Joe smells more than a dog. But he has far less brain wiring.
They ain’t got nothin’ on Joe Biden.
If you do games with dogs where they have to use their noses to find things it has the same impact on them as taking them to the park to run. It wears them out physically. It’s really burning energy to fire the brain that hard. We do this all the time with my pup when weather gets sour and we can’t exercise him outside.
I had one that would turn inside out when she was walking along and smelled fresh deer scent or an antler. And when their nosies are working, their earsies are not. Olfactory input is ignored when they’re asleep, but the slightest sound registers. Whether they respond depends on the noise.
We call one of our poodles, ‘Sniffy’.
The other one we call, ‘Snuffy’.
Not only are they good at smelling things, they can spot a squirrel at 100 yards.
With Joe, the connection is still looking for a brain.
Hide a doggy treat under a pile of pillows.....................
Looks like a beautiful dog behind that nose!
We have an old dog, 13 yo which is old for the breed (hunting breed). He is blind and deaf, but the nose still works! He finds his way around with his nose (& he knows the property so well, even blind he finds his way around - runs the same routes). He’s eating well, sleeping a lot, enjoys being ‘loved’ on, does not appear to be in any discomfort. His nose was incredible before he lost his other senses, but now it’s very interesting & a bit incredible to watch him find his way around or even follow people by scent. People who do not know he’s blind would never guess that he is.
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