• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Petting Dogs Gives Your Brain A Similar Workout To Socializing

October 6, 2022 by Deborah Bloomfield

Therapy dogs are a tool being used to help people with a variety of conditions, but why is it that some quality time with a heckin’ good boy is enough to make some of us feel better? Neuroscience research has uncovered one possible explanation as it found that petting a dog activates an area of our brain associated with socializing in a way that stroking a stuffed toy cannot.

The prefrontal cortex sits at the front of our brain and plays a central role in complex thinking, decision-making, and emotional regulation. Strong emotions and a diverse range of social interactions have been found to get it up and running, and now it seems we can add petting a dog to that list.

Advertisement

The findings come from researchers led by Rahel Marti at the University of Basel in Switzerland who found that seeing and touching dogs not only activates the prefrontal cortex but keeps it active even if the dog leaves. Spending time with dogs was found to have a positive impact on participants’ brain activity in this region, leading to increasingly higher levels of activity.

The study used infrared neuroimaging technology to review the brains of 19 men and women when they saw a dog, chilled with it leaning against them, and petted the animal. The approach was non-invasive – no doubt a necessary requirement considering the enjoyment of a good pooch is probably hampered by having anything drilled into your brain.

The imaging showed that the prefrontal cortex was reliably and increasingly activated by time spent with dogs. While it’s difficult to know the exact translation of this result, it could be of particular significance owing to the role this region of the brain plays in regulating and processing social and emotional interactions.

Advertisement

Curiously, the benefits were not seen to the same extent when participants petted a stuffed toy, indicating that canines are crucial to the effect.

“The present study demonstrates that prefrontal brain activity in healthy subjects increased with a rise in interactional closeness with a dog or a plush animal, but especially in contact with the dog the activation is stronger,” said the study authors in a statement. “This indicates that interactions with a dog might activate more attentional processes and elicit stronger emotional arousal than comparable nonliving stimuli.”

Beyond proving what some already knew to be true (dogs are good), the study could have significant implications for animal-assisted therapies which can be very effective for some people. While a doggo a day won’t exactly keep the doctor away, it could help people to enjoy a better quality of life with the aid of humans’ best friend.

Advertisement

The study was published in PLOS ONE.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Tennis-Canadian teen Fernandez pulls off another upset to reach U.S. Open final
  2. Twitter accelerates again with Bitcoin tips, NFTs, recorded Spaces, creator fund and more
  3. Lamborghini Huracán STO: A final celebration before electrification
  4. Google to invest $1 billion in Africa over five years

Source Link: Petting Dogs Gives Your Brain A Similar Workout To Socializing

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • DNA From Greenland Sled Dogs – Maybe The World’s Oldest Breed – Reveals 1,000 Years Of Arctic History
  • Why Doesn’t Moonrise Shift By The Same Amount Each Night?
  • Moa De-Extinction, Fashionable Chimps, And Robot Surgery – No Human Required
  • “Human”: Powerful New Images Mark The Most Scientifically Accurate “Hyper-Real 3D Models Of Human Species Ever”
  • Did We Accidentally Leave Life On The Moon In 2019 – And Could We Revive It?
  • 1.8 Million Years Ago, Two Extinct Humans Had One Of The Gnarliest Deaths In History
  • “Powerful Image” Of One Of The World’s Rarest Tigers Exposes The Real Danger In Taman Negara
  • Evolution, Domestication, And A Lot Of Very Good Boys: How Wolves Became Dogs
  • Why Do Orcas Have White Spots Near Their Eyes?
  • Tomb Of First King Of Ancient Maya City Discovered In Belize
  • The Real Reason The Tip Of Your Tape Measure Wiggles Like That
  • The “Haunting” Last Message From NASA’s Opportunity Rover, Sent From Inside A Planet-Wide Storm
  • Adorable Video Proves Not All Gorillas Hate The Rain. It Might Even Win One A Mate
  • 5,000-Year-Old Rock Art May Show One Of Ancient Egypt’s First Rulers
  • Alzheimer’s-Linked Protein Levels “20 Times Higher” In Newborn Babies – What Does This Mean?
  • Americans Were Asked If They Thought Civil War Was Coming. The Results Were Unexpected
  • Voyager 1 & 2 Could Be Detected From Almost A Light-Year Away With Our Current Technology
  • Dams Have Nudged Earth’s Poles By Over 1 Meter In The Past 200 Years
  • This Sugar Could Be A Cure For Male Pattern Baldness – And It’s Been In Our Bodies All Along
  • “Cosmic Immigrants”: Daytime Star Seen In 1604 May Be An “Alien Type Ia Supernova”
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version