According to One Neuroscientist, Dogs Are Basically Mini, Furry Humans
It seems like as each year passes, we inch closer and closer to dogs becoming people. Or at least, smaller, very furry people that walk on all fours. DirecTV has a TV channel just for canines, there's evidence that dogs can understand a human's point of view, and now a new MRI test revealed that dogs experience emotions. And the researcher behind that last study says his findings mean it's time to give dogs the same status as humans and is making a public push to do just that. It's an interesting, but flawed, view.
Gregory Berns, a professor of neuroeconomics at Emory University and the author of How Dogs Love Us: A Neuroscientist and His Adopted Dog Decode the Canine Brain, wants us to look at our furry friends in a whole new way. He wants them to gain the same status as people because of a series of tests he ran that indicated dogs have emotions. Writing in The New York Times, Berns explains that using an MRI machine he built in his house (yes, this is a dedicated guy), he found that his dog Callie projected human emotions. First though, was getting the experience right.
"From the beginning, we treated the dogs as persons," wrote Berns. "We had a consent form, which was modeled after a child’s consent form but signed by the dog’s owner. We emphasized that participation was voluntary, and that the dog had the right to quit the study. We used only positive training methods. No sedation. No restraints. If the dogs didn’t want to be in the M.R.I. scanner, they could leave. Same as any human volunteer."
When the dog grew to accept the MRI scanner, Berns found that a key region in the brain — the caudate nucleus — fired up whenever the dog was shown specific hand signals. The caudate nucleus is important, because past studies have shown that by analyzing this region, you can predict people's food preferences and more. Since the dog's caudate was active during some of the tests, Berns wrote that "many of the same things that activate the human caudate, which are associated with positive emotions, also activate the dog caudate. Neuroscientists call this a functional homology, and it may be an indication of canine emotions."
While Berns says this means dogs should be treated as humans, we're not onboard. The thing is, we've known for quite some time that dogs can experience emotions. Dogs very clearly act happy sometimes, sad others. But in the end, they're still animals. Animals that are already treated fantastically by most people. There's really no need to up their status. If we could communicate with them? Sure. But that's not going to happen. Dogs are dogs, and the majority of them enjoy a great life. They shouldn't be treated like humans just because we saw their brains light up at the sign of a treat. Show a human a pizza and they'll do the same thing.
[Pic via Flickr - Tiago]
