Dog Star Technologies travels to California every 2 – 3 months to collect data for a 2-year, $1 million study of service dogs. The data acquisition includes results from interactive ball and tug sensors. DST collects the sensor data at the Canine Companions for Independence (CCI) headquarters campus in Santa Rosa, CA. Then, the team travels to the University of California, Berkeley to use the research MRI at the Li Ka Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences. While at Berkeley the team obtains both structural and functional MRI images of CCI candidate dogs currently in training in their adult program. Structural MRIs are images of body tissue, whereas fMRIs are images of brain activity. For both, the dogs need to remain absolutely motionless inside the scanner bore for the research team to collect quality images devoid of ghosting, technically called “noise artifacts.”
Below is the structural MRI of a CCI candidate dog named Olney:
Very cool!!
(Berkeley, CA)
