cbslocal | Dr. Greg Berns of Emory University wants to prove that a dog really does understand what its owner is saying to them.
“The more I study dogs and the more I study their brains, the more similarities I see to human brains,” Berns told WGCL-TV.
“They are intelligent, they are emotional, and they’ve been ignored in
terms of research and understanding how they think. So, we are all
interested in trying to develop ways to understand how their minds
work.”
Berns uses an MRI to test a dog’s brain.
“So, we’ve done experiments where we present odors to the dogs and
these are things like the scent of other people in their house, the
scent of other dogs in the house, as well as strange people and strange
dogs,” Berns said. “And so what we found in that experiment is that the
dogs reward processing center, so basically the part of the brain that
is kind of the positive anticipation of things responds particularly
strongly to the scent of their human.”
Berns used a testing center in Sandy Springs for the evaluation process. People brought their dogs for the testing.
“They need to be diligent with their homework,” Berns told WGCL.
“They need to be diligent with their rapport with their dogs and the
right rappart.”
Berns put the dogs through a set of training sessions, which included
climbing steps, walking up and down narrow pathways, entering and
remaining in an enclosure, and loud sounds of various pitches. Fist tap Big Don.
