Enthusiasm Review

Dog owners bond with their four-legged friends on the same hormonal pathways through which human mothers bond with their babies.

If a dog looks in the eyes of its owner, the same hormonal response that bonds mothers to their babies lights, according to a study published this week (April 16) in Science. It is the first evidence of a bond formation between the hormone of different species.

"It's an incredible discovery that suggests that dogs have kidnapped human union system," Brian Hare, an expert on dog cognition at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, who was not involved in the work, said Science.

Dogs relationship with the people has always been known for being unique. Some have attributed the long evolutionary history of humans in the Community with domestic dogs. This is undoubtedly a lot of near reach both types, but it supports precisely this clear link.

Takefumi Kikusui animal behavior Azabu University in Japan and his colleagues delved into this issue by collecting the urine of dogs and their owners before and after 30 minutes of interaction between the two. The researchers found that these dog owners couples who spent most of his time, the eyes of another experienced an increase in oxytocin, a hormone known to affect maternal attachment in humans. Dogs that spend the most time, making eye contact had a 130 percent increase in oxytocin, while their owners had a protuberance 300 percent. Canines who spent very little time, eye contact with their owners know no increase in oxytocin. Moreover, administration of oxytocin through a nasal spray females increased the amount of time spent in the eyes of their owners.

"The neural present in all species of mammals mechanisms to promote mother-child bonding also been adjusted to regulate the union between colleagues," Larry Young at Emory University who was not involved in the study, said Smithsonian Magazine. "Our work in voles is an example. Oxytocin promotes pair bonding between monogamous partners. So it makes sense that the same mechanism could be formed during the co-evolution of species in which it occurs between binding species. "