There are people who prefer dogs and others, more feline. However, when it comes to bonding, we can’t deny that we tend to bond much more with the former than the latter. And the thing is, it’s not just connection emotional or metaphorical, but something completely measurable. When a person and a dog look into each other’s eyes, their brains connect.
That’s the conclusion of a study recently published by Chinese scientists. In fact, it was already known that petting a dog activates very specific areas of the brain. Previous studies show that activity in prefrontal lobe. This is the region responsible for grooming. When we pet our dogs, we are paying attention to them. But what is going on in your brain at that time?
That’s what these scientists wanted to know. To do this, they conducted a small experiment in which they came to the conclusion that the brain activity generated is mutual and that in fact this connection is even stronger when two friends, a human and a furry, They look into each other’s eyes.
Connection between friends
They took part in this study 10 people and 10 beagle dogs.. They had not met before. However, for the study, dogs and humans were paired and allowed to get to know each other for a while. 5 days.
At the time, people were asked to interact with the dogs in a variety of ways, including petting them and looking them in the eyes. In addition, both people and dogs were fitted with electrodes to measure their brain activity. It was thus observed that, as previously noted in the study, when people petted the dogs, prefrontal lobe activity. But what they didn’t know was that exactly the same thing would happen in dogs’ brains.
The connection with affection was obvious, but not the strongest. When people and dogs looked into each other’s eyes, activity increased. various frontal and parietal regions. Their brains were clearly connected, with similar brain activity in areas associated with attentionperception or sensory information in the visual fields.
Seeing this, scientists tried to ask people petting dogs while looking into their eyesThe connection was much stronger.
What were they before? Dogs or people?
When analyzing brain activity measured using electrodesthe connection seems almost simultaneous. However, these scientists suspected that the brain activity would start in one brain and then spread to the other. To test this, they developed mathematical algorithm able to detect changes on very small time scales. It was thus seen that in reality this very representative brain activity begins in the human brain and later spreads infectious dogs.
The more friends the better
What also caught the attention of the participants in this study was that the connection between the brains increased as the humans and dogs got to know each other. The stronger their connection, the more similar their brain activity became. This is almost a demonstration of why the dog is man’s best friend.
Dogs Can Help Understand ASD
One of the main symptoms of many autism spectrum disorders (ASD) This is a deficit in social cognition. It is defined as social cognition the set of cognitive and emotional processes by which we interpret, analyze, remember, and use information about the social world. In short, how we perceive ourselves and the people around us, and how this affects how we treat them.
It is thought that this deficit in social cognition may be caused by a lack of brain synchronization. It has long been known that people interacting with each other can link their brain activity. The dog is a novelty, but the relationships between people were knownIf people with ASD may have some difficulty making this connection, would the same be true for dogs with ASD?
To answer this question, the study authors repeated the experiment with some dogs with symptoms similar to those of ASD in humans. They found that the connection to the human brain was much weaker.
Can this be solved?
Studies in mice have shown that low and controlled dose of LSD can improve the social behavior of mice with ASD traits. So they tried dosing dogs with the psychedelic before repeating the study. As they already felt, the brain’s connection with humans was much better.
Let’s not forget that LSD is a drug and should never be taken unsupervised. However, it may be a treatment option in the future. These dogs have proven that. The study will have to be repeated with a much larger sample size, but it’s certainly a good start. And the purpose of this study is not to demonstrate why you’d practically give your life for your dog. It also has Application in the treatment of ASD.
Source: Hiper Textual
