Dogs' Sense Of Smell Connects To Vision, Discover Researchers

Researchers from Cornell University have revealed the first evidence that dogs’ sense of smell is connected with their vision and other distinctive regions of the brain. “We’ve never seen this connection between the nose and the occipital lobe, functionally the visual cortex in dogs, in any species,” said Pip Johnson, assistant professor of clinical sciences and senior author of ‘Extensive Connections of the Canine Olfactory Pathway Revealed by Tractography and Dissection’. “Whereas in dogs, this study shows that olfaction is really integrated with vision in terms of how they learn about their environment and orient themselves in it.” Johnson and her team found connections where the brain processes memory and emotion, which are similar to those in humans, as well as never-documented connections to the spinal cord and the occipital lobe that are not found in humans. “Knowing there’s that information freeway going between those two areas could be hugely comforting to owners of dogs with incurable eye diseases.” Identifying new connections in the brain also opens up new lines of questioning. “To see this variation in the brain allows us to see what’s possible in the mammalian brain and to wonder – maybe we have a vestigial connection between those two areas from when we were more ape-like and scent-oriented, or maybe other species have significant variations that we haven’t explored,” Johnson said.