It’s been a strong few weeks for furthering our knowledge of our
favorite faithful friends. We’ve learned that dogs use facial expressions just
for us when they know we’re watching and that they can smell our emotions and
then adopt them. Now, we’ve discovered another way dogs are similar to us: they
consolidate new memories when they snooze.
In a delightful scientific study, researchers at Eötvös Loránd
University in Budapest, Hungary tracked dogs’ brain activity while they snoozed
to see if, like humans, dogs use sleep – specifically short bursts of activity
called sleep spindles – to retain new information.
Using electroencephalography (EEG) monitors attached to their
scalps, the researchers discovered the dogs’ also showed signs of sleep
spindles during non-REM sleep. Again, like humans, the frequency of the sleep
spindles also indicated how well a dog had retained the new info it learned
before its nap. The results are published in Scientific Reports.
Sleep spindles in humans are linked to learning and memory. They
only last around half a second and block information from the thalamus, which
relays sensory information, from reaching the cortex, where it would be
processed properly.
"When sleep spindles happen, the brain is being shielded
from outside information, which is very important for memory consolidation
because when you want to remember something, you don't want it to mix with
outside information," co-author Ivaylo Iotchev told Live Science.
"It's the first time that we can actually show this in a
dog," he confirmed.
The researchers used 15 pooch participants across a range of
breeds, recording them napping to get a baseline for brain activity. Then they
got the dogs to practice actions like “sit” and “lie down” in familiar
Hungarian first, and then in unfamiliar English.
After these sessions, when the dogs snoozed, the researchers
recorded their brainwaves. After the nap, the dogs repeated the commands, this
time just in English, to see how well they’d retained the new info.
Iotchev and colleagues discovered the brain activity looked very
similar to that of humans when consolidating memory and experience. Dogs with
more frequent sleep spindles performed better, proving they had retained the
information more effectively.
Previous studies have suggested that dogs dream, and because
humans make up a large part of their everyday experiences, and are one of the
main causes of their body’s rewards system, it's quite likely they dream of
us.
And dogs sleep a lot. On average, they will dog nap for between
12-14 hours a day, and puppies up to 18-20 hours a day. That they're condensing
and consolidating all that they learn and experience, just like humans, makes
sense.
Comments
Post a Comment