Researchers have set out in order to prove that the use of technology to display in the brain when stroking or sitting just beside a dog. They had also compared this to petting a stuffed animal.

HIGHLIGHTS
Researchers used infrared neuroimaging technology to measure brains of 19 adults
Participants’ prefrontal brain activity was larger when interacted with real dogs
Research may help clinicians designs improved system for animal-assisted therapy

Therefore, they had found that when the study participants viewed, felt and touched the real dogs it led to increasingly high levels of activity within the prefrontal cortex, which eventually helps to regulate and process social and emotional interactions.

One of the study authors at the University of Basel in Switzerland named Rahel Marti had wrote that 'Prefrontal brain activity in healthy subjects had enlarged with an increase in interactional closeness with a dog or a plush animal, but particularly in contact with the dog the activation has got stronger.' The findings seemed to appear in the October 5 issue of PLOS ONE.

The researchers had used infrared neuroimaging technology in order to measure what happened within the brains of 19 adults who had viewed a dog, reclined with similar dog against their legs, or petted the dog.

Then the participants did the same with a furry stuffed lion known as Leo, who has been filled with a water bottle to mimic the temperature and weight of the dogs.

From the study, it was found out that participants’ prefrontal brain activity was larger after they interacted with real dogs. Well, the largest impact was found with petting.

Along with this, the brain activity gets enlarged every time when the participants interacted with the real dog that failed to happen with each successive stuffed lion interaction.

The impact had continued even when the dogs were no longer present.

The researchers have mentioned in a journal news release that 'This indicates that interactions with a dog may activate a lot of basic attentional processes and elicit emotional arousal than comparable nonliving stimuli.'

Well, it has been possible that this research might help clinicians designs improved systems for animal-assisted therapy.

Future studies were required to look at whether petting animals would trigger similar brain activity in patients with socio-emotional deficits.

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