Your dog loves you too: research

24 November 2014 - 14:24 By Times LIVE
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Researchers have found that the reward centre of your dog's brain is triggered, when it smells your scent.

According to a paper published in Behavioural Processes, researchers used neuroimaging to study odour processing in the canine and found that of all the smells the dogs were exposed to during an MRI, it was only the scent of their owners that triggered activity in the caudtate nucleus of their brains.

While most of the brain has too many associated functions to say "this bit specifically does that" - the caudtate is an exception.

"More than any other region of the brain, activation here is associated with reward processes to a high probability, and this includes both primary rewards like food, social rewards, and, in humans, complex rewards like money, music, and art." the researchers wrote.

According to the researchers, when the dogs got a whiff of their humans, "the caudate response resembled that of humans seeing pictures of loved ones who are not physically present."

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