Summary: During social interactions, human and dog brain activity becomes synchronized, with mutual gazing and petting enhancing this connection. Over five days, synchronization between human-dog pairs increased with familiarity, suggesting a leader-follower dynamic, where humans lead and dogs follow.
Dogs with social impairments showed a loss of synchronization, but this was reversed with a single treatment of LSD. These findings could have implications for autism research, offering potential biomarkers and treatments for social symptoms.
Key Facts:
- Brain synchronization between humans and dogs grows with familiarity.
- Mutual gazing and petting synchronize brain regions linked to attention.
- LSD treatment reversed social impairments and brain synchronization loss in dogs.
Source: Wiley
During social interactions, the activity of the brain’s neurons becomes synchronized between the individuals involved.
New research published in Advanced Science reveals that such synchronization occurs between humans and dogs, with mutual gazing causing synchronization in the brain’s frontal region and petting causing synchronization in the parietal region.
Both regions are associated with attention.
The strength of this synchronization increased with growing familiarity of human–dog pairs over 5 days, and tests indicated that the human is the leader while the dog is the follower during human–dog interactions.
Dogs with certain genetic mutations that cause them to have social impairment symptoms characteristic of autism spectrum disorder showed a loss of this synchronization, as well as reduced attention during human–dog interactions. These abnormalities were reversed by a single treatment with the psychedelic LSD.
“There are two implications of the present study: one is that the disrupted inter-brain synchronization might be used as a biomarker for autism, and the other is LSD or its derivatives might ameliorate the social symptoms of autism,” said corresponding author Yong Q. Zhang, PhD, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Beijing.
About this animal neuroscience research news
Author: Sara Henning-Stout
Source: Wiley
Contact: Sara Henning-Stout – Wiley
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access.
“Disrupted human–dog interbrain neural coupling in autism-associated Shank3 mutant dogs” by Yong Q. Zhang et al. Advanced Science
Abstract
Disrupted human–dog interbrain neural coupling in autism-associated Shank3 mutant dogs
Dogs interact with humans effectively and intimately. However, the neural underpinnings for such interspecies social communication are not understood. It is known that interbrain activity coupling, i.e., the synchronization of neural activity between individuals, represents the neural basis of social interactions.
Here, previously unknown cross-species interbrain activity coupling in interacting human–dog dyads is reported.
By analyzing electroencephalography signals from both dogs and humans, it is found that mutual gaze and petting induce interbrain synchronization in the frontal and parietal regions of the human–dog dyads, respectively.
The strength of the synchronization increases with growing familiarity of the human–dog dyad over five days, and the information flow analysis suggests that the human is the leader while the dog is the follower during human–dog interactions.
Furthermore, dogs with Shank3 mutations, which represent a promising complementary animal model of autism spectrum disorders (ASD), show a loss of interbrain coupling and reduced attention during human–dog interactions. Such abnormalities are rescued by the psychedelic lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD).
The results reveal previously unknown interbrain synchronizations within an interacting human–dog dyad which may underlie the interspecies communication, and suggest a potential of LSD for the amelioration of social impairment in patients with ASD.
