Surprising information continues to emerge about dogs, which have been considered our most loyal friends for centuries. Our friends, who were discovered to be able to visualize odors in their minds in the past few weeks, can go beyond that and ‘see’ odors, according to a new study.
In the study, published in The Journal of Neuroscience, scientists mapped the olfactory brain pathways of pet dogs with diffusion MRI scans. With the obtained data, a 3D map of the neural pathways of the dog brain was created. The map showed a huge, previously unknown pathway between dogs’ olfactory and visual systems.
Their visual cortices are working even harder than when we see them:
Cornell University neuroimaging researcher Pip Johnson, who was involved in the study, shared that they had never seen this connection between the nose and the visual cortex in the brain. Moreover, according to Johnson, the dogs’ visual cortex worked harder in the olfactory state than in our vision state.
Although this research does not clearly reveal whether dogs can literally see by smell, each discovery made in the brain continues to surprise us. Moreover, preliminary data from studies of the same type that are just beginning in cats have already shown that this relationship is much stronger in cats.
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