By The European Times | Created at 2026-08-18 13:13:25 | Updated at 2026-08-18 14:53:55
2 hours ago
In humans, we describe this feeling as “euphoria”
Any dog lover will tell you that their four-legged friend senses your mood and emotions, writes the BBC.
Now scientists have determined exactly what happens in a dog’s brain when it sees a person – even a complete stranger – smiling or frowning.
The study involved 14 dogs who stood completely still in a brain scanner while they were shown pictures of human faces.
Pictures of happy, smiling faces triggered activity in a specific area of the brain associated with the feeling of reward.
This reward system is the part of the brain that is activated when we experience pleasure and remember pleasant experiences – for example, when we eat delicious food or receive praise.
In humans, we often describe this feeling as the “euphoria” we experience when we win a game or even when we receive a positive comment on social media.
Previous studies on dogs have found that the same area of the brain is activated when dogs anticipate a tasty reward or smell a familiar person.
“It controls our motivation to do things – our desire to act,” says Laura Quaya, one of the lead researchers in the study from the University of Vienna. “So this finding suggests that happy faces, even when they belong to strangers, have positive meaning for dogs.”
Quaya and her colleague Raul Hernandez-Perez continued their study to see how dogs respond to other human emotions. The animals were shown images of people expressing happiness, anger, fear and sadness. However, the brain’s reward system responded only to happy faces.
“Dogs can distinguish positive emotions from all others, but they don’t seem to be able to distinguish different negative emotions from each other,” Hernandez-Perez, also from the University of Vienna, told the BBC.
Illustrative photo: pexels-nikeah-schell-859761-12096679
