Using a technique called diffusion tension imaging (DTI), neuroscientists have succeeded in mapping the sensory and motor systems of two dolphin brains, for the very first time. This would help the researchers to understand how animals actually use the skill of echolocation. Echolocation is the skill that animals use to navigate and spot prey by emitting high frequency sounds. Most mammals process sound in the temporal lobe whereas a dolphin’s auditory nerve is wired to both the brain’s primary visual region and the temporal lobe, which is exactly the reason for a Dolphin’s world-famous sonar. Neuroscientists at Emory University have presented these facts and more in a forthcoming paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Lori Marino, cetacean neuroscientist and study co-author said: “This research shows that the dolphin brain is even more complex than we realised. They can rapidly move back and forth between their senses of sight and sound and are the most sophisticated users of biological sonar in the animal kingdom.” Using DTI (that maps the brain’s wiring structure) , the researchers were able to establish that two totally different regions associated with vision and hearing respectively were clearly connected by the auditory nerve in a dolphin’s case.

Based on these mappings of dolphin brain, Gregory Berns, lead study author, believes that as a next step, DTI technique can also be used to scan the brains of all the animals housed in museums and this may help in digging out some answers to the mystery of how animals think.

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Author:Technology Blog