Pigeons on high Breast Cancer Detection

Who you calling bird brain?

A new study reveals that pigeons are almost as good as humans at detecting breast cancer on a mammogram — mostly because they don’t become distracted.

 

Once trained, pigeons had a success rate of just 5 to 10% lower than radiologists, according to a paper in the Public Library of Science.

"The pigeon visual system is even better than the human visual system at certain tasks," says Elizabeth Krupinski, an experimental psychologist at Emory University School of Medicine.

Her research deals with the cause of human error and why radiologists focus on one part of an image.

The study says the birds aren’t just winging it, but are, in fact, "prodigious discriminators of complex visual stimuli.”

"The birds proved to have a remarkable ability to distinguish benign from malignant human breast histopathology after training with differential food reinforcement," the researchers added.

For this experiment, which was conducted over a year, eight birds were put into a box while images of cancer cells, which scientists would view under magnifying glass, were projected onto a screen. Scientists trained the birds to peck on one box if the image of the cells appeared malignant, and another box if they looked benign.

When the bird was correct, it received a treat.

"Their brain is less than the size of a walnut, but the proportion of their brain devoted to visual systems is much more than ours," Krupinski says.

Pigeons can already be trained to detect misshapen pills, alphabet letters, emotions on a human face and even the differences between Monet and Picasso.

It’s not surprising that pigeons could detect masses on X-Rays, but given how few facilities are equipped with pigeon labs, it’s not clear just how soon this research could come home to roost.