Millions of people around the world have a special bond and relationship with their pets, especially with dogs. Dogs are a commonly owned animal that are welcomed into the households of millions of United States citizens every year. Not only are dogs a best friend to humans and make you feel more loved, they play a role in the human brain through physical touch and interaction. Based on the CNN article, “What petting a dog can do for your brain” by Sandee LoMotte, a study was done where a stuffed animal and a living dog were put in the same room. The researchers would see when the human was in the room with the dog and the stuffed animal, which one would stimulate the brain the most. They chose to study the frontal cortex of the brain because this part is in charge of overseeing how we think and feel. The goal was to show that human-animal interactions may boost emotional activity in the human brain. Which they would later find out that the brain stimulation would raise as both of the test subjects moved closer.
However, the researchers did make the stuffed lion seem as real as possible with the feel and temperature, but this didn’t make it real enough. As many would suspect, the stimulation of the human brain went up the most in the frontal cortex with the real dog rather than the stuffed animal. With the study producing results which the researchers had expected, additional research has been conducted. “This latest study adds to existing research on the benefits of animal-assisted therapy in medically supervised neural rehabilitation for nervous system conditions, such as strokes, seizure disorders, brain trauma and infections.”
Dogs are a great pet to have in your household and they are also great pets for your overall health. The brain had a much bigger boost in activity when the human petted the fur of the animals rather than it just being in the same room. The brain would increase the closer the animals would get, but evidence proves that physical touch is the most effective. Other researchers did the same research with live rabbits, guinea pigs, cats, and horses. Everyone is different, but one thing most people like are living animals whom they can love and receive love from in return. They received the same results from the other animals and can confidently say that dogs and many other animals boost brain activity and help overall health. More people should understand that dogs are a gift and make humans better souls spiritually and physically.
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