Humans Hardwired to Tune Into Animals

By JENNIFER VIEGAS - DISCOVERY NEWS
Added: Mon, 29 Aug 2011 14:08:36 UTC

Years of either running from or running after animals left its mark in the human brain -- even just looking at a photo of an animal jolts our brains into action.

No matter how high tech and urban we may become, animals continue affect our brains like no other person, place or thing, shows new research in the latest issue of Nature Neuroscience.

Co-author Ralph Adolphs explained to Discovery News "that it is important for the brain to be able to rapidly detect animals. The reasons for this are probably several, but would likely include the need to avoid predators and catch prey."

"These abilities are at once critically important to survival and yet very difficult to do," added Adolphs, a professor of psychology, neuroscience and biology at the California Institute of Technology. "Both predator and prey detection requires fast, real-time detection of shapes that are often camouflaged in a cluttered environment."

Adolphs, project leader Florian Mormann, and their colleagues recorded how the brains of 41 neurosurgical patients undergoing epilepsy monitoring responded to images of people, landmarks, animals, or objects. During 111 experimental sessions, the researchers monitored the subjects' brain activity as they sat in bed while viewing about 100 images per session. The monitoring was quite precise, showing how even individual neurons reacted.

The scientists found that neurons in the right amygdala responded preferentially to pictures of animals, whether they were of cute little critters or threatening big beasts. The amygdalae are two almond-shaped groups of neurons located deep within the brain.

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