狗狗也会为你高兴为你伤心

狗狗不仅是人类最好的朋友。当你高兴时，它也会欢呼雀跃，而当你心情低落时，它似乎也能感同身受，有时候甚至还能安慰你。这些可是有科学依据的哦。
Being with your dog makes you feel good. And Dr. Sandra Barker is trying to find out why. Dr. Barker, a professor of psychiatry and director of the School of Medicine Center for Human-Animal Interaction at Virginia Commonwealth University, studies what happens inside our bodies when we interact with dogs.

Sandra Barker: We’re trying to find out what’s really physically going on, is there a physiological benefit that folks are getting? No one’s ever looked at the brain waves before with human-animal interaction.

Barker talked about her 2009 study, in which people’s brain waves were tested before and after spending time with a dog.

Sandra Barker: We saw an increase in those brain waves, the theta frequency and the alpha frequency. Those are the frequency bands and the activity that we would expect to see associated with relaxation.

Dr. Barker's team also measured a decrease in cortisol – the human stress hormone – after her subjects interacted with a dog.

Dr. Barker believes that much larger scale studies are needed to find out more about how animals – like therapy dogs – can make an impact in a clinical setting.

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