Effects of contact with a dog on prefrontal brain activity: A controlled trial

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 17; no. 10; p. e0274833
• Main Authors: Marti, Rahel, Petignat, Milena, Marcar, Valentine L, Hattendorf, Jan, Wolf, Martin, Hund-Georgiadis, Margret, Hediger, Karin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: San Francisco Public Library of Science 05.10.2022; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Animal behavior; Arousal; Biology and Life Sciences; Brain; Brain research; Comparative analysis; Consciousness; Deoxygenation; Dogs; Frontal lobe; Glycosylated hemoglobin; Heart rate; Hemoglobin; Infrared spectra; Infrared spectroscopy; Laboratory animals; Medicine and Health Sciences; Near infrared radiation; Near infrared spectroscopy; Neuroimaging; Oxygen; Oxygen content; Oxygen saturation; Oxygenation; Physical Sciences; Prefrontal cortex; Psychological aspects; Research and Analysis Methods; Social Sciences; Spectrum analysis; Statistics; Stuffed animals (Toys); Touch; Switzerland
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0274833

There is a broad range of known effects of animal contact on human mental and physical health. Neurological correlates of human interaction with animals have been sparsely investigated. We investigated changes in frontal brain activity in the presence of and during contact with a dog. Twenty-one healthy individuals each participated in six sessions. In three sessions, participants had contact with a dog, and in three control sessions they interacted with a plush animal. Each session had five two-minute phases with increasing intensity of contact to the dog or plush animal from the first to the fourth phase. We measured oxygenated, deoxygenated, and total hemoglobin and oxygen saturation of the blood in the frontal lobe/frontopolar area with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (SenSmart Model X-100) to assess brain activity. In both conditions, the concentration of oxygenated hemoglobin increased significantly from the first to the fourth phase by 2.78 [mu]mol/l (CI = 2.03-3.53, p < .001). Oxygenated hemoglobin concentration was 0.80 [mu]mol/l higher in the dog condition compared to in the control condition (CI = 0.27-1.33, p = .004). Deoxygenated-hemoglobin concentration, total hemoglobin concentration, and oxygen saturation showed similar patterns. Prefrontal brain activation in healthy subjects increased with the rise in interaction closeness with a dog or a plush animal. Moreover, interaction with a dog stimulated more brain activity compared to the control condition, suggesting that interactions with a dog can activate stronger attentional processes and elicit more emotional arousal than interacting with a nonliving stimulus.