According to research led by Rahel Marti at the University of Basel in Switzerland, the prefrontal cortex of the brain becomes increasingly more active when real dogs are seen, felt, or touched. The study, which was released on October 5 in PLOS ONE, demonstrates that this effect endures even after the dogs are gone but is diminished when stuffed dogs are used in place of real dogs. The findings have implications for clinical therapy involving animals.
Researchers believe that a better understanding of the associated brain activity could aid clinicians in designing more effective systems for animal-assisted therapy because interacting with animals, particularly dogs, is known to help people cope with stress and depression. The prefrontal cortex may be especially important because it helps to control and process social and emotional interactions.
Using infrared neuroimaging technology, prefrontal cortex activity was non-invasively monitored in the study while 19 men and women looked at dogs, reclined with the same dogs against their legs, or petted the dogs. A faux-fur-covered stuffed lion filled with a water bottle to match the dogs’ weight and temperature, was used to simulate each of these scenarios.
Results showed that interaction with the real dogs increased prefrontal brain activity, and that this difference was greatest for petting, which was the most interactive condition. The fact that prefrontal brain activity increased each time people interacted with the real dog was another significant difference. Even though they played with the stuffed lion over and over again, this didn’t happen. This suggests that the reaction may be based on familiarity or social bonding.
In the future, more research needs to be done to learn more about familiarity and to find out if patients with social and emotional problems have the same increase in prefrontal brain activity when petting animals.
The authors also say: “The current study shows that healthy subjects’ prefrontal brain activity increased with an increase in interactional closeness with a dog or a plush animal, but that the activation is strongest when the dog is in contact. This suggests that interactions with a dog might arouse emotions more strongly and activate attentional processes more so than similar non-living stimuli. “
