Pigeons (Columba livia) as Trainable Observers of Pathology and Radiology Breast Cancer Images

Richard M Levenson; Elizabeth A Krupinski; Victor M Navarro; Edward A Wasserman

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0141357

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Pigeons (Columba livia) as Trainable Observers of Pathology and Radiology Breast Cancer Images

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Pigeons (Columba livia) as Trainable Observers of Pathology and Radiology Breast Cancer Images

Richard M Levenson, Elizabeth A Krupinski, Victor M Navarro and Edward A Wasserman

PloS one, Vol.10(11), pp.e0141357-e0141357

2015

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0141357

PMCID: PMC4651348

PMID: 26581091

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Abstract

Pathologists and radiologists spend years acquiring and refining their medically essential visual skills, so it is of considerable interest to understand how this process actually unfolds and what image features and properties are critical for accurate diagnostic performance. Key insights into human behavioral tasks can often be obtained by using appropriate animal models. We report here that pigeons (Columba livia)-which share many visual system properties with humans-can serve as promising surrogate observers of medical images, a capability not previously documented. The birds proved to have a remarkable ability to distinguish benign from malignant human breast histopathology after training with differential food reinforcement; even more importantly, the pigeons were able to generalize what they had learned when confronted with novel image sets. The birds' histological accuracy, like that of humans, was modestly affected by the presence or absence of color as well as by degrees of image compression, but these impacts could be ameliorated with further training. Turning to radiology, the birds proved to be similarly capable of detecting cancer-relevant microcalcifications on mammogram images. However, when given a different (and for humans quite difficult) task-namely, classification of suspicious mammographic densities (masses)-the pigeons proved to be capable only of image memorization and were unable to successfully generalize when shown novel examples. The birds' successes and difficulties suggest that pigeons are well-suited to help us better understand human medical image perception, and may also prove useful in performance assessment and development of medical imaging hardware, image processing, and image analysis tools.

Animals

Breast Neoplasms - pathology

Humans

Reinforcement (Psychology)

Female

Problem Solving - physiology

Breast Neoplasms - diagnosis

Breast Neoplasms - diagnostic imaging

Mammography - methods

Pattern Recognition, Visual - physiology

Columbidae - physiology

Discrimination Learning - physiology

Details

Title: Subtitle: Pigeons (Columba livia) as Trainable Observers of Pathology and Radiology Breast Cancer Images
Creators: Richard M Levenson - Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of California Davis Medical Center, Sacramento, California, United States of America
Elizabeth A Krupinski - Department of Radiology & Imaging Sciences, College of Medicine, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America
Victor M Navarro - Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, United States of America
Edward A Wasserman - Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, United States of America
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: PloS one, Vol.10(11), pp.e0141357-e0141357
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0141357
PMID: 26581091
PMCID: PMC4651348
NLM abbreviation: PLoS One
ISSN: 1932-6203
eISSN: 1932-6203
Publisher: Public Library of Science; United States
Language: English
Date published: 2015
Academic Unit: Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute
Record Identifier: 9984070607802771

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