A Pug Shall Lead the Way!

Last week's New York Times Science section featured an interview with Princeton professor, Samuel Wang, author of Welcome to Your Brain, 2009 Young Adult Science Book of the Year. In it, he revealed that he is currently investigating the relationship between dog brain size and dog breed characteristics, a project that came about because he took his pug to the vet.

"At the vet's office, there were all these M.R.I.'s sitting around, hundreds of them, and it struck me: 'Hey, dogs aren't covered by Hipaa! Their records aren't confidential!"

Since then, Wang, with the cooperation of vets on Long Island and in Maryland, has compiled " a gold mine of data," and is working on deciphering the relationship between brain structure and behavior. "We're asking, Do we find a larger cortex--the part of the brain that's involved in problem solving and intelligence--in those breeds that are good at problem solving? Or, Could we find a larger amygdala, which is related to emotional responses, in dogs that are known to be high strung or nasty?"

Wang is not sure if there are implications for humans in this research since human brains do not differ that much in size from person to person, but it is another example of research across species that may hold some clues as to how brain size does effect characteristics in general.

And to think, it was all inspired by the professor's pug, who he describes as "very sweet, but not the brightest!"