Dogs can ‘see’ with their noses, study suggests

Dogs are renowned for their ability to identify and track objects by scent.

Dogs are renowned for their ability to identify and track objects by scent. Now it’s been revealed they enhance this talent with special brain structures that link it to how they see.

A study published this month in the Journal of Neuroscience revealed that vision and the sense of smell are connected in the brains of dogs, something not yet found in any other species.

“The most interesting thing about this research are the connections from the nose up to the occipital lobe, which houses the visual cortex,” said veterinary neurologist Philippa Johnson, an associate professor at Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine and senior author of the study. 

She and her colleagues studied MRI scans of the brains of 23 dogs that showed neurological connections between the olfactory bulb, where smells are recognized, and their occipital lobe, where vision is processed.

Humans, who rely mainly on vision, have no such connections in their brains, although it’s possible there’s something similar in other animals that depend heavily on scent, Johnson said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/weird-science/dogs-can-see-noses-study-suggests-rcna39333

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