Human
and dog brains both have dedicated 'voice areas'
The
first study to compare brain function between humans and any non
primate animal shows that dogs (& humans) have dedicated voice
areas in their brains. According to a study in the Cell Press Journal
on Feb 20, dog brains are sensitive to acoustic cues of emotion.
Researchers say that the voice areas evolved at least 100 million
years ago, where humans and dogs had a common ancestor. Dogs and
human live in a similar social environment. This offers a new insight
of the behavioral and neural mechanisms of dogs. Dogs use similar
brain mechanisms to process social information, which is why humans
can communicate well with dogs.
They
ran the same neuron-imaging experiment on both dogs and humans for
the first time. Subjects listened to both dogs'
and humans' various sounds to capture their brain activities. Both
species similarly process emotionally loaded sounds. An area lit up
more with happy sounds than unhappy ones in both species. The
researchers were surprised by the common response to emotion across
species. There were some differences too, but most importantly the
study took the first step to understand how dogs can be good at
responding to human feelings.
NOS:
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| These are dogs at the MR Research Centre |
NOS:
- Science is collaborative: Researches worked to together to obtain evidences. Dogs and Humans participated in this study.
- Science is based on evidence: Researches recorded information to support their hypothesis.
- Person's view & experience can influence data: The researches could have loved the dogs and somehow influenced the data or had a bias in conducting this research.
- Importance of repeatability: This is the first time to compare brain function between humans and dogs, so researchers must be able to repeat this experiment again and get a similar result.
I like the topic you choose for your article, as a lot of people can relate to having a dog. A study like this helps explain the connection between humans and their beloved pets, which I think is really cool. Another Nature and Science theme that could be applied to this article is the role of motivation and curiosity. Dogs are something that humans are curious and passionate about, so conducting a study on why the relationship between the two is so strong is very pertinent.
ReplyDeleteI loved reading this, it is really easy to forget that this is something special and not all animals have this trait. This makes the connection stronger between human and his companion.
ReplyDeleteThis is such a great topic! I find this to be a very interesting study. It has been said for a very long time that "dogs are a man's best friend, and I think this very much shows that this statement is so true. This makes me wonder what other animals have this same developed part of their brain?
ReplyDeleteI find it very interesting how we use similar brain mechanisms for processing social information. You mentioned that the voice areas evolved when humans and dogs shared a common ancestor, I wonder if this is true for any other animals that at one point shared a common ancestor with humans?
ReplyDelete