Animal vs. Human MRI scans

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Has any comparison ever been made between human MRI scans and animal MRI scans? Surely, this would be a good way of finding the supposed 'difference' between us and all other species. Would give us some insight into the consciousness than exists only in humans, yet eludes definition.

I doubt there would be a difference. To be fair, you would need to scan a person who has had zero contact with people. Otherwise the results are void

Yes, I can't believe it hasn't occurred to someone to try this, though. On the other hand, imagine the implications if no substantial difference was found. The animal rights movement would be scientifically proven to be correct all along! No more cheap, factory farmed food...

I don't understand why the person would have had to have zero contact with people? I just think it would be interesting to get a typical human, scan their brain showing reactions to various stimuli, and do much the same with an animal. If animals do NOT experience pain, fear, any emotions, even intellectual abilities, then the difference should be clear for virtually any human or any, e.g. horse, that you choose.

The idea is that a person brought up in a civilised way will likely have different scan pattern to that of an animal. Stress, thoughts, and these thoughts could be about anything. Whereas the animal in question could very well be concerned about escaping and fear, and the person-knowing what is going on to be fairly calm.

If an animal had no fear of pain, they would be stupid and have no instinct to escape for their own lives

brains of animals and humans differ in physiologycaly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain#Prim ... ing_humans

the idea about unsocialized person and socialized one is a good one although having someone who was away from technology and people to lay still in MRI chamber would be a major problem.

All that an MRI reveals is the macrophysiology of the subject. You can see the structures of the brain, and that can provide you with insight about which structures are typically or atypically developed.

But an MRI can't allow you to pinpoint consciousness, cognition or memory. We know that animals have brains, and that animals have structures that are analogous to the structures in our brains. But that is as far as macroscopic and radiological examination can really take us.

What is much more telling is the degree to which psychological testing can demonstrate (or fail to demonstrate, as the case may be) evidence of higher level reasoning and memory.

The way I see it is to humans are animals too. Taking some MRI scans of humans and animals will show however how humans are different from other animals.

There is actually a study ongoing with fMRI which is a lot more sensitive.

They are building dictionaries(fMRI records) of brains when exposed to certain pictures and other things, both with humans and animals. They expanded their research to higher mammals after they realized they could detect lies in humans.

The end result will be snapshots of what thoughts are, and they will be able to compare between humans and say, canines.

We'll know, to some degree, how much animals think(at least like us).

Do you have names of researchers or a link to more information on this study? I would like to know more.

Research subject is shown picture of tree, thinks, that lab tech has a great body, I would like to get under her lab coat.

The next subject has just broken up with her boyfriend, who was stolen by a girl that looks like the researcher.

The next subject has come as a lab rat, and seeks the researchers approval. Maybe they will be given experimental drugs followed by disection. The MRI is just a cover for the real experiment.

Animals are lucky, and nice, they have plain thoughts. tied down and stuck in a MRI tunnel, they are not going to be thinking well of humans, this is a long way from playing ball or frisbe. No matter what pictures they are shown, they are thinking there had better be some doggie treats and a belly rub for this trick.

Human thinking has as much merit as flashing lights on a Christmas tree. It is flashy, but even if it does form a pattern, it has no meaning.

Human thought is like the internet, 50% porn, 40% advertising for items that will attract sex.

Given a rich planet, they have trashed the place and produced 6,000,000,000 unintended results of sex acts.

When chimps were taught sign language, gained a fairly large vocabularty, they were asked what they thought of humans, they did not have to think about it, and signed, "Bad Monkey".

All the other mammals are embarassed by us.

Do you have names of researchers or a link to more information on this study? I would like to know more.[/quote]

I'm sorry, I dont. I am sure google would turn up something.

Mythbusters visited a lab in Florida where they were studying fMRI as a lie detector. That may have been the same research project: I had heard about it prior to that. The mythbusters - of course - tested the system.

All I know is from what I recall of an episode of Nova on PBS television. They mentioned studying something and discovering by accident that they could detect lies. And then they talked about scanning animals to match against human scans.

Pssssst! Humans are animals.

ruveyn

I'm aware of a study, not to detect lies, but to predict intentions:

http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/06/scie ... -seen-nod/
http://gizmodo.com/242008/german-scient ... ng-machine

Predicted 7 seconds before making a decision for the volunteer in a BBC documentary. I can't find information on that exact test, but should be able to find the program through the archives. That was just a left/right test. It has a much higher success rate than 70%. I think it was over 90%.

True.
Interesting.

Here's what I found: an article on a study related to what Fuzzy was talking about:
http://www.apa.org/releases/deception.html

But to my opinion researchers won't be able to see thoughts on (f)MRI scans.
All they can see on (f)MRI scans is the brain areas and which areas are active during a specific task (compared to a control task). But I wouldn't call that 'thought(s)'.

Correct. They'll not know exact thoughts, but they will be able to say "this animal is thinking about food" or perhaps even "its favourite food".

Those images will serve as a sort of rosetta stone bridging human and animal thought.

That will be interesting. As I'm sure many dog owners are aware, it is clear dogs have quite elaborate thoughts - though usually based around food, sex or going for a walk. Drifting somewhat off-topic the most interesting thought out action I've seen my Westie do is to take a plastic toy to another dog and to toss it around in front of the other dogs nose to deliberately try to lure the other dog to play with the toy... and in so doing drop a hide chew so he could steal it and run away with it. Shows a certain amount of strategic thinking.