Because the MRI’s strong magnetic field affects computer equipment, the control room is partitioned from the main scanner room. When we entered, a young woman draped in a surgical gown was staring intently at a computer screen with several brain images.

She was not pleased to have visitors.

“Who are you?” she snapped at me. “Have you had a TB test?”

I honestly couldn’t remember when I had last been tested for tuberculosis. Fortunately, Andrew distracted her.

“I have!” he announced cheerfully.

Leonard’s assistant explained that we were there to observe MRI scans of monkeys. The monkeys being scanned that particular day were from a different research lab. Because they had not gone through Leonard’s behavioral training, these monkeys had received a heavy dose of sedation. One monkey, surrounded by three veterinary technicians, was in the scanner when we entered, attached to monitors that reported vital signs like heart rate, breathing, and body temperature. Another monkey was on a cart, recovering from anesthesia. I almost walked right by it, until it started twitching with muscle spasms as the sedation wore off.

We took the opportunity to explain what we were trying to do with the Dog Project. The vet techs were not enthusiastic.

“You’re going to have to monitor them,” one said. “Vital signs and core body temperature.”

“How do you do that?” Andrew asked.

“Rectal probe.”

“Why would we do that to a dog that isn’t even sedated?” I asked.

“It’s standard operating policy to fully monitor all animals undergoing a procedure,” she replied.

“But we’re not doing a procedure,” I protested. “The dogs will be trained to go into the scanner willingly.”

She wasn’t buying it. “Who is going to be with the dogs?”

“Us, the dog trainer, and the owner.”

She shook her head. “I suppose you two are okay because you’re university employees, but no outside visitors.”

Although it was clear there was no convincing this woman, I pressed on. “Look, would you volunteer your dog to be in an experiment without being present?”

“I suppose not. Even so, you’ll have to convince the review committees.”

Andrew and I had seen enough. It surprised me that one of the nation’s premier animal research facilities wasn’t more encouraging about the Dog Project. But we were more determined than ever to find the right home for it.

When I got home that night, Callie and Lyra greeted me with unusual attention. Instead of jumping up and down as they usually did, they sniffed my feet intently. As I walked through the house they trailed me from a respectable distance, focused on my feet.

They knew. I had tracked monkey stink home with me.

Logistical problems aside, I realized there was no way we could do the scanning at Yerkes with all those monkeys.

6

Resonant Dogs

WHEN HELEN AND MADDY started kindergarten, I began a tradition of visiting their classes every year to teach the kids about the brain and perhaps convey some of the excitement in figuring out how it works. The first time I did “Brain Day” at the school, the principal and I had a frank discussion of what I planned to discuss.

“Will you emphasize the importance of brain health?” she asked. “Tell the kids about wearing bike helmets and how drugs damage the brain?”

“Um, sure,” I said. “How do you feel about me bringing a brain to school?”

“You mean a plastic model?”

“No. A preserved human brain.”

“In a jar?” she asked.

“A bucket,” I explained. “We have a set of teaching brains at the university that I can check out. The kids can touch it.”

A look of fascination flashed across the principal’s face, immediately replaced with one of consternation.

“We’ll need to send home a permission slip.”

She needn’t have worried. Not a single parent objected.

The kids loved Brain Day. Even a few teachers snuck into the classroom to touch the brain. I’m not sure the students ended up remembering much of what I said that first time, but it certainly made an impression when I reached into the bucket and brought out a full-sized, dripping wet human brain. Half the class said, “Cool!” while the other half simultaneously said, “Gross!”

By the time of the Dog Project, I had done Brain Day seven years in a row. Maddy was in fifth grade, her final year in elementary school, and Helen had begun middle school. The questions the students asked always fell into a predictable pattern. The bright ones asked questions like “Where do dreams and emotions come from?” Others just wanted to jam their fingers as far into the brain as they could. The last year I did Brain Day at the elementary school, a small boy raised his hand and asked a question I had never heard before.

“Have you ever studied a dog’s brain?” he asked.

The teacher chided the boy for asking silly questions.

“As a matter of fact,” I interrupted, startled by the coincidence. “We are about to do just that.”

With Helen’s transition to middle school, there wouldn’t be an opportunity to bring the brains to her science class. Sixth-grade science was devoted to geology, meteorology, and astronomy, and biology wouldn’t return until the seventh grade.

Growing up, Kat and I had gone to public schools, and we believed strongly in public education. As is true in many cities, however, the quality of the public schools in Atlanta varies widely. The schools that Helen and Maddy attended were solid but had the difficult mission of fulfilling the needs of all the kids in a very diverse district. A large number of children couldn’t afford to buy lunch and many had special needs.

At the end of her first week of classes in middle school, Helen brought home her science textbook, one apparently compiled by a team of bureaucrats who had overdosed on their daily Ritalin. Every page was crammed with full-color pictures guaranteed to distract even the most focused student from the text. The text itself was nothing more than a litany of facts to be memorized. Although it was the neighboring school district that had made national headlines for banning the word evolution from its textbooks, you could still detect a patronizing tone throughout. More than anything, it smacked of scientists-say-it-is-so (wink-wink).

Helen struggled. Although she was diligent with her homework, her test and quiz scores hovered in the mid-70s. Kat and I didn’t want to be helicopter parents, but we couldn’t let Helen flounder. It was time for a parent-teacher conference.

Helen’s science teacher was a pleasant man who bore a striking resemblance to Ed Helms. The classroom looked much like I’d expected it to: slate laboratory tables arranged in neat rows, a chemical sink with an eyewash station should any mishap occur, wall cabinets full of rock specimens, a large periodic table of the elements on the wall.

After an exchange of pleasantries, I moved on to the reason for our meeting. “We’re concerned about how Helen is doing in science.”

He pulled up a grade spreadsheet to show us.

“Helen’s a good student,” he said. “She turns in all of her homework.”

“Yes,” I said, “but she seems unclear on what material she will be expected to know.”

“The students get exposed to the material multiple times,” he explained. “They hear about it in class. They read it in the textbook. And then we review it.”

This may have been partly true, but having helped Helen with her homework and then heard what was on each test, I was skeptical. Helen was in fifth-period science, and I began to suspect that the teacher might have been confusing what he had gone over with the classes at the beginning of the day with those at the end.