THERE’S more going on in the heads of sheep than you might think: they can
remember the faces of 50 other sheep. Researchers at the Babraham Institute at
Cambridge University trained sheep by presenting them with pairs of faces, and
rewarding them with food if they moved towards the appropriate picture (
Nature, vol 414, p165). They could still do the task two years later.
Specialised cells in the temporal and frontal lobes of the sheeps’ brains
were active when presented with a familiar face, but didn’t respond to
strangers, the researchers say. Human brains show similar activity patterns.
Team…
