Gazing into human - dog bonds

Science 17 April 2015: 
Vol. 348 no. 6232 pp. 333-336 
DOI: 10.1126/science.1261022

• REPORT

Oxytocin-gaze positive loop and the coevolution of human-dog bonds

1. Miho Nagasawa1,2, 
2. Shouhei Mitsui1, 
3. Shiori En1, 
4. Nobuyo Ohtani1, 
5. Mitsuaki Ohta1, 
6. Yasuo Sakuma3, 
7. Tatsushi Onaka2,
8. Kazutaka Mogi1, 
9. Takefumi Kikusui1,*

+Author Affiliations

1. ¹Department of Animal Science and Biotechnology, Azabu University, Sagamihara, Kanagawa, Japan.
2. ²Department of Physiology, Jichi Medical University, Shimotsuke, Tochigi, Japan.
3. ³University of Tokyo Health Sciences, Tama, Tokyo, Japan.

1. ↵*Corresponding author. E-mail: kikusui@azabu-u.ac.jp

• ABSTRACT
• EDITOR'S SUMMARY

Human-like modes of communication, including mutual gaze, in dogs may have been acquired during domestication with humans. We show that gazing behavior from dogs, but not wolves, increased urinary oxytocin concentrations in owners, which consequently facilitated owners’ affiliation and increased oxytocin concentration in dogs. Further, nasally administered oxytocin increased gazing behavior in dogs, which in turn increased urinary oxytocin concentrations in owners. These findings support the existence of an interspecies oxytocin-mediated positive loop facilitated and modulated by gazing, which may have supported the coevolution of human-dog bonding by engaging common modes of communicating social attachment.

• Received for publication 9 September 2014.
• Accepted for publication 3 March 2015.

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Source: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/348/6232/333