Università degli Studi di Parma

The mirror neuron system has also been implicated, and this connection is particularly interesting.

Mirror neurons were first discovered in macaque monkeys in the early 1990s by the Italian neuroscientist Giacomo Rizzolatti and his colleagues at the University of Parma.

These are neurons that fire both when an animal performs a specific action and when it observes another individual performing the same action.

The same neurons that activate when a monkey reaches for a peanut also activate when the monkey watches a researcher reach for a peanut.

A bit like when I'm angry at the children, I open my eyes very, very wide if I can't discipline them because I'm in front of somebody.

But now researchers at the University of Parma have showed that dogs can actually, communicate in some way with their owners by blinking they could play a role you might say in the way that dogs communicate with us they found that dogs blinked more when they saw their owner blinking but didn't show the same response to strangers and the researchers behind the study say it suggests that blinking could have a social role in the relationship between dogs and humans I'm sure my dog growing up when she wanted to go out would blink at me quite a lot, like more than like a normal blink, which would suggest what this research is suggesting.

So what exactly are these canines trying to tell us? I'd like to say I'm joined on the line by Chiara Kanori.

She's a PhD researcher in neuroscience and behavioural biology at the University of Parma and is co-first author of this fascinating study.

Hi, Chiara.

Thanks for joining me today on The Agenda.

Or you can WhatsApp me 048715500.

And many thanks there to my guest, Kiara Kanori.