Callie and McKenzie — Willing Research Dogs
A recent article in Science Daily described a scientist's offhanded effort that eventually should mark a breakthrough in the field of that perennial favorite question: "What do our dogs think?," a field presently based on surmise and guesswork. This new research ability should lay to rest that annoying posit made by diehard skeptic non-believers who say — "dogs do not think." These imagination-free folks maintain that — as mere animals — dogs are unable to think, don't dream and at best are but savant social manipulators, evolved beggars.
The article concerns Callie and McKenzie, each a family dog. The bread winner in Callie's pack at home often wondered, as every well adjusted human with dogs will, "What does Callie think?"
Well, Callie's "dad" is Gregory Berns, M.D., PhD (see below) who works at an Emory University research facility that uses fMRI. Berns is a research physician and scientist who looks to find how the human mind works. fMRI stands for "functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging."
Where the classic MRI is looking for normal vs. abnormal structure in the image; fMRI is looking for which areas and structures within the human brain become more active (light up) during the rational or emotional responses experienced by humans when they are presented with the stimulations of the senses — sight, sound, touch, smell or taste – this can include the introduction of concepts or scenarios via conversation, the written word, pictures, photos etc.
Dr. Berns' human brain-imaging studies have looked at everything from why teens engage in risky behavior to how adults decide to follow, or break, established rules of society.
The idea occurred to Dr. Berns that if he could get his dog Callie into his MRI tube and then hold still, he could then begin to work out what Callie is thinking. Other curious researchers had never got past the assumption and insurmountable premise that an awake, alert and responsive dog would not want to enter the confinement of an MRI tube, move to the exact location, take a specific pose and then remain perfectly still during the ten second stretches it takes for the MRI machine to take an image.
Sedating a dog markedly effects or blocks the nature of exactly that being measured. Forced restraint would not only get into ethical boundaries, it could also variably affect what emotions and other response the restrained dogs were having.
Dr. Berns and co-conspirator Melissa Cate decided to get their own dogs to want to go into the confines of the MRI machine and then hold still as a game; call it "The Biscuit For Your Thoughts" game. They were successful.
Callie wearing ear
protection
before she enters the scanner.
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McKenzie wearing ear muffs
as she crawls into her position in the tube.
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Meet Callie and McKenzie, the two dogs who were — and still are — involved in the first phase of what Dr. Gregory Burns calls his "dog project." Callie is his two-year-old southern squirrel-hunting dog. Berns had adopted Callie at nine months of age from a shelter. McKenzie is a three-year-old Border Collie who had previously been well-trained in agility competition by her owner, Melissa Cate.
Callie in her practice
MRI position
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With no stress and in small unhurried steps using biscuit-rewards, Callie and McKenzie learned the new game over a period two months while coming to work with their pack leaders. As part of the game, the dogs learned to place and then hold their heads perfectly still on a chin rest during the scanning process — preventing blurring of the images.
Since there is no radiation, MRI scanning of the brain is considered harmless. The two main problems are that some feel claustrophobia in the MRI tube, another that the MRI scannings are quite loud. Neither Callie nor McKenzie showed even the least claustrophobia, unlike humans who lie on their backs, the dogs were facing directly out. The dogs were fitted with ear muffs, and also became accustomed to the MRI noise as they learned the game.
In the first experiment, the dogs – while in the MRI – were trained to hand signals. One signal meant the dog would receive a hot dog treat, and another signal meant it would not receive one.
 Callie walking into the MRI.
Ear muffs are wrapped in red gauze.
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The caudate region of the brain, associated with rewards in humans, showed activation in both Callie and McKenzie when they saw the signal of an imminent hot dog, but not for the no-treat signal. "These results indicate that dogs pay very close attention to human signals," Berns says. "And these signals may have a direct line to the dog's reward system."
Dr. Berns and his fellow researchers are now poised to measure canine neural activity at rest and in response to various stimulations. The overall aim is to decode the mental processes of dogs by recording which areas of their brains are activated by various stimuli. Ultimately, they hope to close in on questions like: Do dogs have empathy? Do they know when their owners are happy or sad? How much language do they really understand?
So, to those dogs-can't-think deniers: brace yourselves for proof that dogs can and do think. And what the dogs probably think is: those denier humans don't want to have any fun, who cares about them anyway?!?
When the time comes that a soul finding technology is developed, dogs will be proven, unnecessarily for many of us, to have souls. Big ones.
Gregory Berns, M.D., Ph.D., professor at
Emory University
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Dr. Berns graduated in physics from Princeton University, received a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of California, Davis and an M.D. from the University of California, San Diego
Dr. Berns specializes in the use of brain imaging technologies, including fMRI to understand human motivation and decision-making. Current projects include the biology of decision making and how peer pressure affects the brain. He also uses neuroimaging to understand moral decision making.
He has received numerous grants from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and the Department of Defense and has published over 50 peer-reviewed original research articles.
