A groundbreaking study by the ELTE NAP Canine Brain Research group has uncovered how age and brain shape impact the connectivity of dogs’ olfactory brain regions. This research, utilizing resting-state fMRI scans on awake dogs, provides the first detailed look into the functional connectivity of olfactory regions in dogs’ brains and how individual characteristics shape this network.
Published in Scientific Reports, the study offers new insights into how variations in brain structure and age can affect the olfactory functions of dogs, who have long been valued for their exceptional sense of smell. However, the precise workings of their olfactory brain networks have remained largely unexplored.
“While many behavioral studies have examined how individual differences affect a dog‘s ability to sniff, we lacked an understanding of how these differences might be reflected in the brain,” explained Asami Nakaimuki, a Ph.D. student from the Department of Ethology at Eötvös Loránd University and the study’s lead author.
Using resting-state fMRI, the team mapped the brain’s functional connectivity while dogs remained still for eight minutes. Their findings revealed that younger dogs and those with more elongated brain shapes exhibited stronger connectivity between olfactory brain regions compared to older dogs and those with rounder brains. The study found no significant differences between male and female dogs.
“These results are consistent with earlier behavioral studies,” noted Attila Andics, senior author and co-principal investigator of the research group. “As with humans, the sensitivity of a dog’s sense of smell declines with age. Additionally, our study corroborates previous research suggesting that dogs with longer heads tend to perform better in smell tests.”
Interestingly, the researchers observed particularly strong communication between the left and right olfactory brain regions—an interconnection pattern that is also seen in rodents and even humans born without a sense of smell.
“This may represent a default wiring pattern in the mammalian brain,” Nakaimuki added.
Enikő Kubinyi, head of the Department of Ethology at Eötvös Loránd University, summarized the findings, saying, “The length of a dog’s nose plays a significant role not only in the size of the olfactory epithelium but also in brain shape and inter-regional communication related to the sense of smell.”
The researchers plan to further investigate how these olfactory networks respond when dogs engage with scents, offering the next step in understanding how the brain processes smell in real-world conditions.
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