我們如何改變狗的大腦

我們如何改變狗的大腦

When it comes to dogs, it's a lot like dating: People all have their types.

說到狗，這很像約會:每個人都有自己喜歡的類型。

It's not just the outside of a dog's head that looks different; the brain has a different shape, too. (Photo: Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock)

Over the centuries, humans have bred dogs to create the looks and personalities they want. We've bred border collies for herding, bloodhounds for tracking, and golden retrievers for retrieving game — with the latter eventually evolving into the most chill family pet.

幾個世紀以來，人類通過飼養(yǎng)狗來創(chuàng)造他們想要的外觀和個性。我們培育了邊境牧羊犬用于放牧，獵狗用于追蹤，金毛尋回犬用于尋回獵物——而金毛尋回犬最終演變成了最冷的家庭寵物。

All this time we've been messing with appearance and skills, it turns out our tinkering has gone much deeper. A new study that looks at dogs' brain scans shows that humans haven't just changed the way dogs look and act; we've actually changed the shape of the canine brain.

一直以來，我們都在擺弄自己的外表和技能，事實證明，我們的修補工作已經深入得多。一項關于狗的腦部掃描的新研究表明，人類不僅改變了狗的外貌和行為方式;事實上，我們已經改變了犬類大腦的形狀。

To see what impact all that breeding had on gray matter, scientists looked at MRI brain scans from 62 purebred dogs from 33 different breeds.

為了了解所有這些繁殖對灰質的影響，科學家們觀察了來自33個不同品種的62只純種狗的核磁共振腦部掃描結果。

"The first question we wanted to ask was, are the brains of different breeds of dogs different?" lead author Erin Hecht, a neuroscientist studying dog cognition at Harvard University, told The Washington Post.

“我們想問的第一個問題是，不同品種的狗的大腦是否不同?”

And that's exactly what they found. Researchers saw a wide variety in brain structure that wasn't simply related to the size of the dogs or the shapes of their heads.

這正是他們所發(fā)現的。研究人員發(fā)現，狗的大腦結構千變萬化，不僅與狗的大小或頭部形狀有關。

Breed and brain diversity

品種和大腦多樣性

Researchers identified six networks of regions in the brain that were various sizes in different dogs, and found that each of those networks was associated with at least one behavioral trait. Areas linked to sight and smell, for example, were different in dogs that were bred to be alert, such as dobermans, versus other breeds. Breeds bred for fighting had changes in the network that correlated with anxiety, stress and fear responses.

研究人員在不同的狗的大腦中發(fā)現了6個不同大小的區(qū)域網絡，并發(fā)現每個網絡至少與一種行為特征有關。例如，與視覺和嗅覺相關的區(qū)域，比如杜賓犬，與其他品種的狗相比，是不同的。為戰(zhàn)斗而繁殖的品種，其神經網絡的變化與焦慮、壓力和恐懼反應有關。

"Brain anatomy varies across dog breeds," Hecht told Science, "and it appears that at least some of this variation is due to selective breeding for particular behaviors like hunting, herding and guarding."

赫克特在接受《科學》雜志采訪時說:“不同品種的狗的大腦解剖結構各不相同，而這種差異似乎至少有一部分是由于對狩獵、放牧和守衛(wèi)等特定行為的選擇性繁殖造成的。”

The results were published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

研究結果發(fā)表在《神經科學雜志》上。

Interestingly, these brain changes were there even though all the dogs studied were pets. They weren't professional herders or retrievers or otherwise working dogs.

有趣的是，即使所有被研究的狗都是寵物，這些大腦的變化仍然存在。他們不是專業(yè)的牧人，也不是尋回犬，或者其他工作犬。

"It's kind of amazing that we can see these differences in their brains even though they're not actively performing the behaviors," Hecht tells Science.

赫克特在接受《科學》雜志采訪時表示:“令人驚訝的是，我們能看到他們大腦中的這些差異，盡管他們并沒有積極地執(zhí)行這些行為。”

The fact that we're changing dogs so much that it affects their brain structure is "deeply profound," Hecht says. "I think it is a call to be responsible about how we're doing that and how we’re treating the animals that we've done it to."

赫克特說，我們對狗狗的改變如此之大，以至于影響了它們的大腦結構，這一事實“意義深遠”。“我認為這是一個需要對我們如何做到這一點，以及我們如何對待我們對待過的動物負責任的呼吁。”