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Life experience rather than domestication accounts for dogs’ increased oxytocin release during social contact with humans
Dogs’ increased human-directed sociability compared to wolves may be the result of increased oxytocin system activity and decreased stress responses, but comparative studies accounting for life experience are lacking. We compared hand-raised, pack-living wolves’ and dogs’ behavior and hormone concen...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8277847/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34257399 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-93922-1 |
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author | Wirobski, Gwendolyn Range, Friederike Schaebs, Franka S. Palme, Rupert Deschner, Tobias Marshall-Pescini, Sarah |
author_facet | Wirobski, Gwendolyn Range, Friederike Schaebs, Franka S. Palme, Rupert Deschner, Tobias Marshall-Pescini, Sarah |
author_sort | Wirobski, Gwendolyn |
collection | PubMed |
description | Dogs’ increased human-directed sociability compared to wolves may be the result of increased oxytocin system activity and decreased stress responses, but comparative studies accounting for life experience are lacking. We compared hand-raised, pack-living wolves’ and dogs’ behavior and hormone concentrations after interacting with a closely bonded and a familiar human. Both preferred the bonded partner, but dogs showed less variability in human-directed sociability than wolves. Physical contact was not associated with oxytocin but correlated positively with glucocorticoids in the pack-living animals when the human was not bonded. To clarify the role of life experience, we tested pet dogs and found that oxytocin concentrations correlated positively with physical contact with their owners, while glucocorticoids remained unaffected. Results show that, given similar experiences, wolf-dog differences in human-directed sociability and associated hormones are subtle and indicate that factors related to life as a pet dog rather than domestication account for oxytocin release during human–dog interactions. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8277847 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-82778472021-07-15 Life experience rather than domestication accounts for dogs’ increased oxytocin release during social contact with humans Wirobski, Gwendolyn Range, Friederike Schaebs, Franka S. Palme, Rupert Deschner, Tobias Marshall-Pescini, Sarah Sci Rep Article Dogs’ increased human-directed sociability compared to wolves may be the result of increased oxytocin system activity and decreased stress responses, but comparative studies accounting for life experience are lacking. We compared hand-raised, pack-living wolves’ and dogs’ behavior and hormone concentrations after interacting with a closely bonded and a familiar human. Both preferred the bonded partner, but dogs showed less variability in human-directed sociability than wolves. Physical contact was not associated with oxytocin but correlated positively with glucocorticoids in the pack-living animals when the human was not bonded. To clarify the role of life experience, we tested pet dogs and found that oxytocin concentrations correlated positively with physical contact with their owners, while glucocorticoids remained unaffected. Results show that, given similar experiences, wolf-dog differences in human-directed sociability and associated hormones are subtle and indicate that factors related to life as a pet dog rather than domestication account for oxytocin release during human–dog interactions. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-07-13 /pmc/articles/PMC8277847/ /pubmed/34257399 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-93922-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Article Wirobski, Gwendolyn Range, Friederike Schaebs, Franka S. Palme, Rupert Deschner, Tobias Marshall-Pescini, Sarah Life experience rather than domestication accounts for dogs’ increased oxytocin release during social contact with humans |
title | Life experience rather than domestication accounts for dogs’ increased oxytocin release during social contact with humans |
title_full | Life experience rather than domestication accounts for dogs’ increased oxytocin release during social contact with humans |
title_fullStr | Life experience rather than domestication accounts for dogs’ increased oxytocin release during social contact with humans |
title_full_unstemmed | Life experience rather than domestication accounts for dogs’ increased oxytocin release during social contact with humans |
title_short | Life experience rather than domestication accounts for dogs’ increased oxytocin release during social contact with humans |
title_sort | life experience rather than domestication accounts for dogs’ increased oxytocin release during social contact with humans |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8277847/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34257399 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-93922-1 |
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