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This Is Your Brain On Dogs
Animals
This Is Your Brain On Dogs
Many dog owners feel like their pets are like their children—and your brain seems to think so, too. In a new study published in the journal PLOS ONE, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital investigated differences in brain activity when women volunteers viewed pictures of their dogs, their children, and unfamiliar dogs and children. What they found suggests that the bond between human and pup tugs at some of the same heartstrings—or rather, brainstrings—as the bond between mother and child. The MGH team analyzed functional MRI data for 14 women, each with at least one child between two and 10 years old and a pet dog that had been owned for at least two years. In the course of the experiment, the women were shown a series of photographs: of their child, of their dog, and of unfamiliar dogs and children. The MRI machine paints a portrait of the participants’ brain activity while viewing the images, by detecting changes in blood flow and oxygen levels in different brain structures.
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