If you’ve ever come home from a stressful day and collapsed on the couch, only to have your dog curl up beside you, you know the feeling you get. Without saying a word, it’s like they know exactly how you’re feeling. That unspoken connection in moments like this isn’t just in your head.
It’s happening in your brainwaves.
New research shows that when you and your dog share a moment, like a gaze or a gentle pet, your brains might actually sync up in ways no other pet can match. Scientists now say that the bond between humans and dogs is even more special than we thought. This finding helps explain why your dog seems to understand you on a level no one else can.
The communication between humans and dogs has evolved over 30,000 years, with dogs being the first domesticated by humans for their hunting skills and protective abilities(1).
Historically and to the present day, dogs have become integral members of many families, providing emotional support and companionship. While some interspecies relationships are formed based on mutual benefits such as protection, they rarely achieve the same level of communication seen in human–dog pairs.
Additionally, dogs have evolved to read, understand and respond to a wide range of human emotional states and communicative signals through behaviors, facial expressions, and even vocal tones(2), presenting an extraordinary level of active companionship that is not often seen in other domesticated or companion animals, such as cats.
However,
the neural mechanisms underlying the unique and effective communication between humans and dogs are largely unknown.
While previous research on interbrain neural coupling has exclusively focused on interactions within a species (e.g., dog to dog), it is not yet known whether interbrain activity coupling also occurs between individuals of different species.
Neural coupling is like your brain and your dog’s brain getting in sync.
Think of it as your thoughts and feelings ‘dancing’ together when you interact. For example, when you look into your dog’s eyes or give them a loving pet, your brains start mirroring each other, creating a deeper connection. It’s a way for your dog to tune into your emotions and respond to you on a whole new level.
The unique attachment between humans and dogs raises important questions of how the neural states of dogs and humans may connect with each other when they interact, how this may reflect their internal states of the ongoing social interactions such as joint attention, and how this may vary with dogs’ ability to interact with humans.
A recent study investigated if this neural coupling exists between humans and dogs. This research utilized noninvasive wireless electroencephalogram (EEG) to simultaneously measure brain activity in laboratory dogs
(beagles) and unfamiliar humans while they engaged in social interactions(3).
Major Findings
This is the first evidence-based research to report and characterize interbrain activity coupling during cross-species interactions. Results indicate that the strength, direction, and attention-associated brain regions of the interbrain activity coupling during human-dog interactions are analogous to human-human interactions(4).
It was discovered that the frontoparietal network is a critical brain network involved in interbrain activity coupling and is crucially involved in the attentional selection of sensory information(5).
When dogs and humans gazed at each other and the dogs were stroked, their brain signals synchronized. The
brain patterns in key areas of the brain associated with attention matched in both dog and person.
Figure: The direction of interbrain activity coupling is from human to dog and increases in five days with more social interactions. A) Brain regions involved in activity synchronization on the first and fifth day of social interactions and the direction of synchronization. The line width indicates the intensity of GPDC (generalized partial directed coherence). The blue arrow indicates direction of activity synchronization. B,C) The GPDC from human to dog (blue) and GPDC from dog to human (red) in frontal regions and parietal regions on the first and fifth day of social interactions(3).
Summary
This research shows that dogs’ and humans’ brain activity can synchronize when they gaze into each other’s eyes. Known as neural coupling, this phenomenon has been seen in interactions within species but observing it between different species highlights the unique human-dog bond.
This research also indicates that brain regions linked to attention and focus align more closely as the familiarity between dog and owner grows. This research offers new insights into how humans and dogs build deeper, more connected relationships.
It’s clear from experience across many cultures that the companionship of dogs improve our lives. After all, they have always been called
Man’s best friend for a reason.
If you’d like to learn another proven way to improve stress levels,
References:
1. Miklósi A, Topál J: What does it take to become ‘best friends’? Evolutionary changes in canine social competence. Trends Cogn Sci 17:287-94, 2013
2. Müller CA, Schmitt K, Barber AL, et al: Dogs can discriminate emotional expressions of human faces. Curr Biol 25:601-5, 2015
3. Ren W, Yu S, Guo K, et al: Disrupted Human-Dog Interbrain Neural Coupling in Autism-Associated Shank3 Mutant Dogs. Adv Sci (Weinh):e2402493, 2024
4. Zheng L, Liu W, Long Y, et al: Affiliative bonding between teachers and students through interpersonal synchronisation in brain activity. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 15:97-109, 2020
5. Corbetta M, Shulman GL: Control of goal-directed and stimulus-driven attention in the brain. Nat Rev Neurosci 3:201-15, 2002
