The Dog Mom's Brain
When people ask me if I have kids, my standard answer is, “I have a dog.” My husband and I are the first to admit that we tend to treat our pup like a “real” child. He eats organic food. Our apartment is littered with ripped plush toys. We talk to him in stupid high-pitched voices. He spends almost all of his time with us, including sleeping and vacations. When he’s not with us he’s at a daycare center down the street — and I spend much of that time worrying about whether he’s OK. It’s probably not a full-blown separation anxiety disorder, but when we’re separate, I’m anxious.
On an intellectual level I understand that having a dog is not the same as having a human child. Still, what I feel for him has got to be something like maternal attachment. And a new brain-imaging study backs me up on this.
Researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital scanned the brains of 14 women while they looked passively at photos of their young children, photos of their dogs, and photos of unfamiliar children and dogs.
Read more at...