聞香識主人：嗅覺記憶能觸發(fā)動物喜怒哀樂l.doc

Odour of familiar human lingers in animals brain where it triggers emotional response聞香識主人：嗅覺記憶能觸發(fā)動物喜怒哀樂If your dog looks pleased to see you it is probably because it loves the particular way you smell.如果你的狗一見到你就顯得很開心的話，有可能是因為它喜歡你散發(fā)出的獨特氣味。The odour of a familiar human apparently lingers like perfume in the animals brain where it triggers an instinctive emotional response, research published yesterday reveals.根據(jù)近日公布的一份研究顯示，熟悉的人所散發(fā)的氣味會如同香水一般深深地存在于動物的腦海里。這些氣味會觸發(fā)大腦內(nèi)部本能的情緒反應(yīng)。Our scent acts on a part of the canine brain associated with reward and the strongest reactions are produced by humans that pets know best, say scientists in America.美國科學(xué)家聲稱，犬類的大腦中有一塊負(fù)責(zé)“獎勵”的區(qū)域，與寵物狗最親密的人身上的氣味能夠激起該區(qū)最強烈的反應(yīng)。Gregory Berns, of Emory University in Atlanta, said: While we might expect that dogs should be highly tuned to the smell of other dogs, it seems that the “reward response” is reserved for their humans.埃默里大學(xué)的格里高利 伯恩斯(Gregory Berns)說：“我們原以為這種反應(yīng)是適用于狗之間的。目前看來這種獎勵反應(yīng)只適用于狗的主人。”When humans smell the perfume or cologne of someone they love, they may have an immediate, emotional reaction thats not necessarily cognitive.“當(dāng)人們嗅到愛人身上的香水或古龍水時，會立刻出現(xiàn)情緒上的反應(yīng)，這種反應(yīng)并不一定能被察覺到。”O(jiān)ur experiment may be showing the same process in dogs. But since dogs are so much more olfactory than humans, their responses would likely be even more powerful than the ones we might have.“我們的實驗或許可以表明，狗對氣味的應(yīng)激過程是相同的。不過鑒于狗的嗅覺比人類靈敏，因此它們對于氣味的反應(yīng)會比人類強烈得多?！盜ts one thing when you come home and your dog sees you and jumps on you and licks you and knows that good things are about to happen.“當(dāng)你回到家時，你的狗一見到你就會撲到你懷里，不停地舔你，它知道有好事要降臨了。”In our experiment, however, the scent donors were not physically present.“但是在我們的實驗中，氣味樣本的源體（狗主人）并不在場?！盩hat means the canine brain responses were being triggered by something distant in space and time. It shows that dogs brains have these mental representations of us that persist when were not there.“這意味著，犬類的大腦反應(yīng)是由過去某處發(fā)生過的事所觸發(fā)的。同時也表明，當(dāng)我們不在狗身邊的時候，我們的精神意識形態(tài)會留存在它們的大腦中?！盩he universitys experiment - the first of its type - involved 12 dogs of various breeds who underwent brain scans while five different scents were placed in front of them.埃默里大學(xué)這項開拓性的實驗利用了十二只不同品種的狗作為實驗對象，通過對這些狗的大腦進行掃描，來研究它們對五種氣味的反應(yīng)有何不同。The scent samples came from the subject itself, a dog the subject had never met, a dog that lived in the subjects household, a human the dog had never met, and a human that lived in the subjects household.氣味樣本有五個來源，分別是：被測狗自己、被測狗從未見過的另一只狗、居住在被測狗家中的另一只狗、被測狗從未見過的一個人，以及被測狗的家人。The familiar human scent samples were taken from someone else from the house other than the handlers during the experiment, so that none of the scent donors were physically present.在實驗中，氣味樣本來自被測狗的家人，但他并不參與到實驗中來。因此，所有氣味樣本的源體都沒有出現(xiàn)在實驗現(xiàn)場。The results showed that all five scents elicited a similar response in parts of the dogs brains involved in detecting smells. Responses were significantly stronger for the scents of familiar humans, followed by that of familiar dogs.實驗結(jié)果顯示，狗腦內(nèi)負(fù)責(zé)嗅覺的區(qū)域?qū)@五種氣味都產(chǎn)生了類似的反應(yīng)。對于熟人的反應(yīng)尤其強烈，對于熟悉的狗次之。The findings, which were published in the journal Behavioural Processes, showed that dogs reacted strongest to the scent of a familiar human even when they were not there.這項發(fā)現(xiàn)被刊登在行為學(xué)過程雜志上，文中寫道，即使熟悉的人沒在狗身邊，他們的氣味也會激發(fā)狗最強烈的反應(yīng)。Pets trained as help or therapy dogs showed greater brain activity than the other dogs in the test.在實驗中還發(fā)現(xiàn)，相比其他種類的狗而言，輔助犬