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Dr. Angela Willey In May I attended a great conference, the 4th biennial conference of the Association for Feminist Epistemologies, Methodologies, Metaphysics, and Science Studies (FEMMSS) . At the conference, I heard a wonderful plenary talk by Dr. Angela Willey and her colleagues. Dr. Willey is one of our own - a recent (2010) graduate of Emory’s doctoral program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. In her work, she examines the cultural assumptions underpinning contemporary neuroscience research on monogamy and the social implications of this research. At the conference, I asked Dr. Willey if she would agree to be interviewed about her work for the Neuroethics Blog, and she graciously agreed. Before sharing what she said, I am just going to give you a little background about Dr. Willey and about the neuroscience research on monogamy that she analyzes. About Dr. Willey Dr. Willey has a B.A. from Fordham University and an M.S. in Gender Studies from the London School of Economi...

“It was amazing to see the first brain images of a fully awake, unrestrained dog,” Berns said. “As far as we know, no one has been able to do this previously. We hope this opens up a whole new door for understanding canine cognition and inter-species communication. We want to understand the dog-human relationship, from the dog’s perspective.” —Greg Berns, MD, PhD Recently, the Emory laboratory of Dr. Greg Berns published the first fMRI brain imaging study in unanesthetized dogs.  Popular media reports of the study touting, “What is your dog thinking?” and “Brain Scans Reveal Dogs’ Thoughts” have raised the hackles of the public who ask, “Why conduct a frivolous scientific study on something we already know?” A closer inspection of the actual study publication reveals a simpler and still significant result: The study serves as an experimental “proof of principle”, establishing a model precedent for future dog cognition studies. As a neuroscientist, I view this recent dog brain imagi...