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Dogs always choose their owner’s scent over anything else, shows study
Have you wondered what your dog thinks when it lovingly looks you in the eye? Well, a study shows they experience the same emotions as humans, on seeing something they admire the most.
Dogs and humans have co-existed for ages. While we’ve learned tricks to teach them to speak, doctors recommend exercising with your pooch to lead a happy life. As far as their feelings for you are concerned, it’s more heartwarming than you’d imagine.
Dogs experience love just like humans
A team of researchers did a neuroimaging study on dogs to understand their emotions and responses to different smells. The dogs were made to smell people, and other dogs, “both familiar and unknown”.
As dogs use their sense of smell to familiarize themselves with their surroundings, the scientists at Emory University wanted to see how their brains reacted to the scent of their owners compared to other odors.
They trained pet dogs to sit still to be able to run an MRI on their brains to measure their neural responses to different smells they were exposed to. The study found that the “reward center” in the dogs’ brains activated when they smelled their owners.
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“Of all the smells to were given to take in, dogs actually prioritized the hint of their humans over anything or anyone else,” Embolden Psychology reports. The brain reward system is a network of structures responsible for pleasure, motivation, and reinforcement learning.
They can sense different moods equally well
The study establishes the strong bond humans and dogs share by highlighting other changes in the dog’s brain directly linked to its owner’s behavior.
It’s a universal fact that your dog picks on your emotions. The latest finding takes it one step further by showing that dogs’ brains are “actually physically wired to pick up on” human emotions.
Meanwhile, the sense of smell in dogs is so strong that they can tell when you’re home even without having to look.
