CPT- A Leader in Canine Neuroscience Research: The Danny Faces Experiment
January 22, 2015
The photo shows Kady, a female Golden/Lab CCI release dog owned by CPT Trainer Patricia King, completing her live scan for the “Danny Faces” experiment conducted by the CPT-Emory research team. Kady flawlessly completed 7 fMRI runs.
The Danny Faces experiment is designed to identify the canine FFA (fusiform face area) and to better understand the operation of the canine FFA. The FFA is responsible for facial identification and processing. The first photo shows Kady observing non-facial stimuli. The second photo shows Kady observing facial stimuli. By analyzing brain activity that occurs exclusively upon exposure to the still photos and video of faces, as compared to the non-facial images, we can locate the FFA!
This is a novel canine neuroscience experiment that we hope to publish in Current Biology, an esteemed scientific journal. We thank Emory psychology professor Daniel Dilks (hence the experiment’s name) and his lab cohort Sam Weiller for collaborating with the Dog Project team. We acquired excellent data that may ultimately prove valuable in improving our knowledge of dog behavior and in improving our ability to communicate with our canine friends.
Lastly, we apologize if the photos appear blurry. Due to concerns about the magnetic field of the Siemens 3T MRI erasing the contents of our I-Phone, we took the photos from within the control room, instead of moving closer to the MRI.
(Decatur, GA)
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