Bonus effect in the caudate to social cues…: James K. Rilling et al. “A neural basis for social cooperation.” Neuron 35, no. 2 (July 18, 2002): 395–405. I. Aharon et al. “Beautiful faces have variable reward value: fMRI and behavioral evidence.” Neuron 32, no. 3 (November 8, 2001): 537–551.
20. DOES MY DOG LOVE ME?
186 We had finished the first scientific paper…: Gregory S. Berns, Andrew M. Brooks, and Mark Spivak. “Functional MRI in Awake Unrestrained Dogs.” Public Library of Science ONE 7, no. 5 (2012): e38027.
190 Mirror neurons…: Giacomo Rizzolatti and Luigi Craighero. “The mirror-neuron system.” Annual Review of Neuroscience 27 (2004): 169–192.
191 Mirror neurons are the basis of empathy…: Marco Iacoboni and Mirella Dapretto. “The mirror neuron system and the consequences of its dysfunction.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 7 (December 2006): 942–951.
Imitation and empathy…: Marco Iacoboni. “Imitation, empathy, and mirror neurons.” Annual Review of Psychology 60 (January 2009): 653–670.
192 Brain activation to silent movie of dogs barking…: Kaspar Meyer et al. “Predicting visual stimuli on the basis of activity in auditory cortices.” Nature Neuroscience 13, no. 6 (June 2010): 667–668.
21. WHAT’S THAT SMELL?
196 Dog’s sense of smell is 100,000 times as sensitive…: John Bradshaw. Dog Sense.
197 Smell and control of movement…: Joel D. Mainland et al. “Olfactory impairments in patients with unilateral cerebellar lesions are selective to inputs from the contralesional nostril.” Journal of Neuroscience 25, no. 27 (July 6, 2005): 6362–6371.
198 Dogs can differentiate their own urine…: Marc Bekoff. “Observations of scent-marking and discriminating self from others by a domestic dog (Canis familiaris): tales of displaced yellow snow.” Behavioural Processes 55, no. 2 (August 15, 2001): 75–79.
202 McKenzie was not having a good day…: McKenzie came back three weeks later, after Mark and Melissa had practiced with her. She then performed like a champ and sat for more than seven hundred scans.
204 Dog brain activation looked like human activation to people they love…: Aron et al. “Reward, motivation, and emotion systems.”
22. FIRST FRIEND
207 Most of the dogs in the world are village dogs…: See the classic book on this topic: Raymond Coppinger and Lorna Coppinger. Dogs: A New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behavior, and Evolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).
208 Rapidity with which the dog has changed form…: Coppinger and Coppinger, Dogs, p. 297.
211 Dogs take the form of the people they live with…: Lance Workman, a psychologist at Bath Spa University in Britain, has studied both the physical resemblance of dogs to their owners as well as their personalities and finds evidence of such a relationship.
212 “Less-is-more” approach to dog communication…: Patricia B. McConnell. The Other End of the Leash: Why We Do What We Do Around Dogs (New York: Ballantine Books, 2002).
213 Supreme Court and neuroscience…: Graham v. Florida, 560 US (2010).
24. WHAT DOGS ARE REALLY THINKING
226 Self-domestication…: Hare and Woods. Genius of Dogs.
228 Wolves require a prodigious amount of food…: John Bradshaw. Dog Sense.
Prehistoric cave art…: Pat Shipman. The Animal Connection: A New Perspective on What Makes Us Human (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011), p. 227.
Acknowledgments
First, and foremost, I owe special gratitude to Andrew Brooks and Mark Spivak. Andrew took a risk by working on the project, giving up time from his PhD studies to follow our dream of reading the mind of a dog. Without his contributions and tireless work ethic, none of this could have happened. And without Mark, we would never have been able to train the dogs to go into the scanner. Mark took on the project because it sounded fun and interesting but ended up volunteering countless hours honing our training protocols. More than a dog trainer, Mark made invaluable contributions to the science as we plunged forward. I couldn’t ask for better colleagues than Andrew and Mark.
The other people in the lab contributed in so many ways, large and small. Someday I will look back upon these two years and realize that it was a golden time, made special by the luck of having the right people at just the right time. Thanks to: Jan Barton, Kristina Blaine, Monica Capra, Gavin Ekins, David Freydkin, Lisa LaViers, Melanie Pincus, Michael Prietula, and Brandon Pye.
Outside of the lab, I am grateful to Larry Iten, director of the Emory IACUC, for not hanging up on me when I called him to propose the Dog Project. Larry helped me shepherd the project through the labyrinth of animal research regulations. Sarah Putney, director of the IRB, helped draft the consent form for dog owners and talked us through the implications of treating dogs like children in research. The veterinary staff at Emory has been great, with special thanks to Deborah Mook, Michael Huerkamp, and especially Rebeccah Hunter, who figured out how to keep the earmuffs on the dogs. At the scanner, I am grateful for the MR wizardry of Robert Smith, Lei Zhou, and Sinyeob Ahn, who were crucial in figuring out how to program the MRI to scan dogs.
I am eternally grateful to everyone who volunteered their dogs and their time to be part of the Dog Project. Melissa Cate was the first to join the team with her dog McKenzie. Without them, this would have been no more than a cute dog trick for Callie. Thanks also to the members of the A-Team: Patricia King and Kady, Lorrie Backer and Caylin, Aliza Levenson and Tigger, Melanie Pincus and Huxley, and Richard Fischhof and Rocky.
Thanks to Jim Levine for encouraging me to chronicle the experiences of the Dog Project, helping develop the idea into a book, and matching me with David Moldawer at Amazon, who helped take the book to the finish line. Thanks to Bryan Meltz for her amazing photographic skill.
And finally, thanks to Kat, Helen, and Maddy for living with the Dog Project. I promise to remove the simulator from the living room someday.
About the Author
Author photograph © Bryan Meltz
GREGORY BERNS, M.D., Ph.D., is the Distinguished Professor of Neuroeconomics at Emory University. His research has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Los Angeles Times, Nature, Money, New Scientist, Psychology Today, and on CNN, NPR, ABC, and the BBC. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife, two children, and three dogs.