The dog is the best friend of man, a sentence that is part of our imagination since both have learned to live together. What is the optimal level of understanding as to be between two different species?
The answer may lie in their brains. The dogs have adapted their minds to better understand our emotions, say the scientists. Not only that, as collected from Eroski Consumer therefore animals have become experts of feelings behind our voice, if is sadness or happiness in abundance, to the point that the brains of dogs and people is working quite similar. Humans have also managed to decipher what is behind each type of barking. This makes us understand and communicate with greater fluency. Like humans, dogs also have a brain area dedicated to the interpretation of the word.
“Our study suggests that dogs and people use brain mechanisms increasingly similar to process social information in our environment, and this could explain the success of vocal communication that has emerged between the two species, “says Attila Andics, ethnologist who has studied in detail the relationship between the dog and the man, and the mode in which both species perceived emotions.
How much resemble our minds? The friendship between dogs and people is long. During the approximately 18,000 and 32,000 years together, humans and dogs have shared a similar environmental settings. And this explains also, that our minds have evolved in a parallel fashion. Human laughter, canine howls, cries of children … The setting of dogs and people is full of voices, and our brains are responsible to decipher and recognize what emotions hide these sounds. But to what extent our minds are like? This is the question that scientists have wanted to reveal it. Consequently, they scanned the brain activity of dogs and people while they listened about 200 sounds: from whining and barking, childish laughter to playful. What was the interesting thing? Dog mind has developed, such as human, specializes in interpreting the voices and emotions that trigger zone. And the response of both species compared to the same sounds was more like what experts had even imagined!
“Nobody surprised to know that the human mind has specialized in deciphering the voices of their environment, but until now had not been proven scientifically is that even the dogs have adapted their brain to interpret the voices and their meaning” says ethnologist, who has compared the brain scans of 11 dogs and humans and their reactions to different sounds.
The results of his research have been published in the journal Current Biology. The brains of both species could hide the secret to understanding the strong friendships that arise between dogs and people. Our similar reactions to the voices help us to understand them better. The hidden neural mechanisms entrap our respective brains, then, some of the most relevant to understanding the intense communication and long friendship we have with the furry four-legged companion’s pieces.
However, not all are similarities when comparing the human mind with the dog. The dog’s brain reacts more intensely to loud noises as the human, even when these sounds are not voices. But differences aside, one issue seems clear: the dogs have become adept at deciphering the emotions behind our voice, which is sadness, anger or joy in abundance. And for this, our unconditional pets have even transformed their brain over these thousands of years of living with us. No doubt: the dogs have earned their place as the best friend of men and women.
Cats and dogs are one of the best sources to relieve any kind of depression that a person may have. By having a pet they are able to lessen any of their issues and also to make themselves feel more at home. In a recent study, it was found that when people have depression, if they are given a cat or a dog, they are often able to chase away their depression and stay off of prescription medication. In addition to this, the average cat or dog owner will live up to 5 years longer than a person who does not have pets. The main reason for this is that they create a sense of need in us and that means that we are able to spend the time we need to get to know them and for them to know us. Pets are a special blessing that we need for our welfare as much as they need us.
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