Emory University neuroscientist Gregory Berns, after his dog Newton died, wanted to find out the answer to the question: What do dogs think and how they love us? With that thought started the Dog Project, the research to decode dog emotions with MRI. Previous dog MRIs were made on dead or sedated dogs. No one before had used an MRI on a live, alert dog as he reacted to stimuli.

The Dog Project’s mission was to train dogs that would enter the MRI willingly and respond to rewards or other stimuli. For that, the scientists and his lab crew worked very hard to train Berns’ own dog Callie and another dog. Some other dogs followed in the experiment. The results are fascinating and I absolutely adored the brain scans of the dogs in comparison with those of humans, and the data pointing to the dogs’ special intelligence and relationships to one another and to the people. This study is the first step in looking into dogs’ brains as they react to us and should stimulate more thought and research by the scientific community.

Yet, in some ways, this book can be considered as being more than scientific since it has a lot to do with Berns’ feelings for the dogs in his life, but I think that is a plus, not a minus, as it emphasizes both the author’s tenacity for scientific research and his love of dogs. I found the storytelling to be outstanding, the tone upbeat, the writing clear, to–the-point, and at times emotional, but luckily for the reader, not crassly objective and aloof like other scientific studies. In addition, most scientific terms are also explained in layman’s terms, so I had no problem understanding what went on.

I only wish other scientists brought down their studies to the layman’s level so we could all enjoy them, same as I did Gregory Berns' Book.

dog lovers and those who enjoy research.

author's personality.

is Gregory Berns, M.D., Ph.D., is the Professor of Neuroeconomics at Emory University. As well as being a neuroeconomist, he is also a neuroscientist, professor of psychiatry, psychologist and writer.

I enjoyed reading it and learned from it.

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Created Sep 23, 2014 at 5:27pm • Submit your own review...