Carreiro Cecília, Reicher Vivien, Kis Anna, Gácsi Márta
Doctoral School of Biology, Institute of Biology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, 1117 Budapest, Hungary.
Department of Ethology, Institute of Biology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, 1117 Budapest, Hungary.
Animals (Basel). 2022 Mar 31;12(7):895. doi: 10.3390/ani12070895.
Affective neuroscience studies have demonstrated the impact of social interactions on sleep quality. In humans, trait-like social behaviors, such as attachment, are related to sleep brain activity patterns. Our aim was to investigate associations between companion dogs' spontaneous brain activity during sleep (in the presence of the owner) and their relevant behavior in a task-free social context assessing their attachment towards the owner. In random order, each dog participated in a non-invasive sleep electroencephalogram (EEG) measurement and in the Strange Situation Test (SST) to assess their attachment behavior. We found that higher attachment scores were associated with more time spent in NREM sleep, lower NREM alpha power activity and lower NREM alpha-delta anticorrelation. Our results reveal that, when dogs sleep in a novel environment in the company of their owners, differences in their attachment are reflected in their sleep EEG characteristics. This could be best explained by the different degree that owners could be used as a safe haven in an unfamiliar environment and during the unusual procedure of the first EEG measurement.
情感神经科学研究已经证明了社交互动对睡眠质量的影响。在人类中，特质性的社交行为，如依恋，与睡眠脑电活动模式有关。我们的目的是研究宠物狗在睡眠期间（在主人在场的情况下）的自发脑电活动与其在无任务社交情境中对主人依恋的相关行为之间的关联。每只狗以随机顺序参与了一项非侵入性睡眠脑电图（EEG）测量以及陌生情境测试（SST），以评估它们的依恋行为。我们发现，更高的依恋分数与在非快速眼动睡眠中花费的更多时间、更低的非快速眼动α波功率活动以及更低的非快速眼动α-δ反相关性相关。我们的结果表明，当狗在主人陪伴下于新环境中睡觉时，它们依恋程度的差异会反映在其睡眠脑电图特征中。这可以通过主人在陌生环境中以及在首次脑电图测量这一不寻常过程中能被用作安全避风港的不同程度来最好地解释。
