Come oh come ye tea-thirsty restless ones -- the kettle boils, bubbles and sings, musically. ~ Rabindranath Tagore
Good evening, Kibitzers! I think most of us have looked into the eyes of a dog and been beguiled. Discussion of how that happens has been in the news lately, so let's take a look, below the orange "accident".
Several sources recently have covered a new study appearing in Science last week; I'm referring to the piece in Scientific American.
It seems that, while it's been established that interactions between dogs and humans increase happy brain chemicals like beta-endorphin, oxytocin, and dopamine in both the human and the dog, this study has looked specifically at... looking.
The new study, by Miho Nagasawa of Azabu University in Japan and colleagues, builds on Nagasawa’s previous work, published in Hormones and Behavior in 2009, that found owners and dogs sharing a long mutual gaze had higher levels of oxytocin in their urine than owners of dogs giving a shorter gaze. (Oxytocin, a humble peptide of nine amino acids that is sometimes called the "cuddle hormone," has been implicated in social bonding and is instrumental to the cascade of hormonal changes leading up to and following birth.) Nagasawa and her colleagues concluded that their finding was "a manifestation of attachment behavior." By describing it in this context, the researchers postulated that gaze between a dog and human (particularly a known human), will share similar properties to mother–infant relationships.
Further inquiry suggests that the oxytocin increase is found in the dog, as well.
The article isn't very long and I recommend it; it goes on to discuss efforts to show that these findings indicate co-evolution of humans and dogs. There are some limited studies involving wolves, leading to my favorite sentence:
The study began with 11 wolves—but guess what?: It’s hard to collect urine from a wolf.
Hey, let's do some fake science! Take note of your oxytocin level now (we'll wait), and then check again when you get to the bottom. ;)
All dog pix from cheezburger. If you have some of your best pal, by all means, goose our oxytocin levels again in the thread!
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Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share part of the evening around a virtual kitchen table with kossacks who are caring and supportive of one another. So bring your stories, jokes, photos, funny pics, music, and interesting videos, as well as links—including quotations—to diaries, news stories, and books that you think this community would appreciate. Readers may notice that most who post diaries and comments in this series already know one another to some degree, but newcomers should not feel excluded. We welcome guests at our kitchen table, and hope to make some new friends as well.
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