According to a study of Hungarian scientists particularly in the area of the brain that process sound evolved at least a hundred million years ago. By the time he lived the last common ancestors of humans and dogs. The research also points to the special alliance between humans and their best friends from the animal kingdom.
According to the researchers also helps to explain the neural mechanisms and behavior patterns that allow so effective alliance of more than ten thousand years.
"Dogs and humans share similar social environment," says Attila Andics, ethologist of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. "Our research indicates that they also use the same mechanism in the brain for processing social information. Possible, supported the success of vocal communication between humans and dogs," says .
Results showed that, in humans and dogs respond niche in similar areas of the brain. Unsurprisingly, the dogs responded strongly to the sounds of other dogs while people on the suggestions of the human voice.
Hungarian researchers have learned a group of eleven dogs lie still on the examination bed in the device scans the brain using magnetic resonance imaging. This has allowed the dogs to complete the same experiment as human beings. Scientists thus obtained records brain activity, both dogs and people, while listening to more than two hundred sounds. These include the sounds of people and dogs, which ranged from a statement whining or crying after laughing and playful barking.
The researchers also recorded an astonishing similarity in the way of emotional vocal sounds. As in humans and in dogs area of the rear parts of the temporal lobe, ie the place where the sound is processed, responded more to the sounds of expressing positive emotions than negative. They found, however, also differences. Other than the sounds of the human voice activated more strongly in the dog brain areas in response to sound in 48% of cases. In humans, it was only 3% of cases.
A study published in the journal Current Biology, according to the authors, the first step to understanding the fact that dogs can well empathize with the feelings of their human owners.
Source: Ekolist.cz
