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Story summary
- Laura Cuaya and colleagues scanned dogs’ brains and found they can distinguish human smiles.
- Happy faces activated the dogs’ temporal cortex and caudate nucleus, allowing machine-learning on an MRI of 12 dogs to separate happiness patterns from sadness, fear and anger.
- The study used mainly healthy border collies, limiting broader conclusions.
- Cuaya said training with happy expressions may aid learning and future work will compare human and dog brain responses.
