by Your dog tends your head when you cry, have in the mass when you are stressed and somehow appears at your side in your worst moments. Coincidence? Not even nearby.
Thousands of years of koevolution have given dogs special opportunities to adapt to our voices, faces and even brain chemistry. From brain regions that used to the processing of our speech to the “love hormone” or to the oxytocin, which rises when we block our eyes, the spirit of your dog is firmly wired to absorb what you feel.
The proof of this extraordinary emotional intelligence begins in the brain itself. Shepherds of the brain have committed areas that are sensitive to voice, similar to humans. In a Brain image study, the researchers found that dogs in their temporal cortex have language processing regions that light up in response to vocal noises.
Dogs not only react to one sound, but to the emotional tone of their voice. Brain Scans show that emotionally charged noises – a laugh, a cry, an angry cry – an audio bark and the amygdala activate – part of the brain that is involved in the processing of emotions.
Dogs are also experienced facial readers. Dogs have increased brain activity in the images shown. A study showed that seeing a familiar human face activates the reward centers and emotional centers of a dog – which means that the brain of its dog processes its expressions, perhaps not in words, but in feelings.
Dogs react not only to a sound, but to the emotional tone of their voice (Getty Images)
Dogs don’t just watch their feelings; You can also “catch” them. Researchers call this emotional infection, a fundamental form of empathy in which an individual reflects the emotional state of another. A study from 2019 showed that some dog pairs had synchronized heart patterns in stressful times, with their heartbeats reflect each other.
This emotional contagion does not require complex thinking – it is more of an automatic empathy that results from the tight bond. The sensitive yawn or jarzes of your dog is likely to be attributed to learned association and emotional coordination than to literal mirroring.
The oxytocin effect
The most remarkable discovery in dog-human binding can be the chemical connection that we share. When dogs and people make gentle eye contact, both partners experience an oxytocin increase, which is often referred to as “love hormone”.
In a study, owners who had long mutual eyes with their dogs had significantly higher oxytocin levels, as did their dogs.
This oxytocin feedback loop increases the bond, similar to the view between parents and child. Surprisingly, this effect is unique for domesticated dogs: hand -gained wolves did not react in the same way to human eye contact. When dogs were domesticated, they developed these bases of Oxytocin loop to glue them emotionally on their humans. These soulful eyes that your puppy gives them ties them up chemically to you two.
When dogs and people make gentle eye contact, both partners experience an oxytocin increase (Getty Images).
In addition to contact with the eye, dogs are surprisingly clever in reading human body language and facial expressions. Experiments show that pet dogs can distinguish a smiling face from an angry face, even in photos.
Dogs show a subtle right hemisphere in the processing of emotional information and tend to see when assessing the expressions on the left side of a person’s face-a pattern that can also be seen in humans and primates.
Dogs rely on several senses to recognize how they feel. A happy, high “good boy!” With a relaxed attitude, a completely different message sends a strong cry with a rigid body language. Remarkably, you can even sniff out emotions. In a study from 2018, dogs that were exposed to sweaty by frightened people showed more stress than dogs that smelled “happy” sweat. Essentially, her fear of her dog smells uncomfortable while her relaxed happiness can calm her down.
Bred for friendship
How were dogs so remarkable to human emotions? The answer is in your evolutionary journey next to us. Dogs have smaller brains than their wild wolf ancestors, but in the process of domestication, their brain may have re -wired to improve social and emotional intelligence.
Information comes from a Russian fox death experiment. The foxes bred for tame showed an increased gray substance in regions that are related to emotions and reward. These results question the assumption that domestication makes animals less intelligent. Instead, the breeding of animals can improve the brain railways in a friendly and socially improve that help them shape bonds.
In dogs, thousands of years that live as our companions have finely coordinated brain paths to read human social signals. While your dog’s brain is smaller than a wolf, it can be uniquely optimized to love and understand people.
Dogs probably don’t think about why they are upset or realize that they have different thoughts and intentions. Instead, they are characterized by what they project and react accordingly.
Therefore, dogs cannot be able to read our minds, but by reading our behavior and feelings, they emotionally meet us in a way that only a few other animals can. In our hectic modern world, this interesting empathy is not only lovable; It is evolutionary and socially useful and reminds us that the language of friendship is sometimes completely exceeded.
Laura Elin Pigott is a lecturer for neurosciences and neurorehabilitation, course instructor at the College of Health and Life Sciences of London South Bank University.
This article will be released from the conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read that Original article.
