Children who grow up with pets or on farms may develop allergies at lower rates because their gut microbiome develops with more anaerobic commensals, per fecal analysis in small cohort study

PLOS

 

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Children who grow up with pets or on farms may develop allergies at lower rates because their gut microbiome develops with more anaerobic commensals, per fecal analysis in small cohort study.

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Credit: sabina fratila, Unsplash, CC0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)

Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0313078

Article Title: Gut microbiota markers in early childhood are linked to farm living, pets in household and allergy

Author Countries: Sweden

Funding: This work was supported by the Region Västra Götaland (agreement concerning medical research and education – ALF), https://www.alfvastragotaland.se [ALFGBG966243] [ALFGBG720181] (IA); the Swedish Medical Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet), https://www.vr.se/ [K98-06X-12612-01A] (AW); and the Health & Medical Care Committee of the Region Västra Götaland (Regional Research & Development funds Västra Götaland region) https://www.researchweb.org/is/vgregion/ [grant no. VGFOUREG-12007] (IA). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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Journal

PLOS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0313078 

Article Title

Gut microbiota markers in early childhood are linked to farm living, pets in household and allergy

Article Publication Date

27-Nov-2024

 

New study reveals dogs prefer texture over shape when identifying objects

tactile cues were key in their final choice.

Eötvös Loránd University

 

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For the study the researchers recruited 35 dogs who were trained to fetch a target object from a set of distractors. During testing, the dogs were presented with two choices: one matching the target in shape and the other in texture.

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Credit: ELTE Eötvös Loránd University

In a new study exploring how dogs recognize and generalize objects, researchers from Eötvös Lorand University (Budapest) discovered that dogs prioritize texture over shape when identifying objects.

For the study the researchers recruited 35 dogs who were trained to fetch a target object from a set of distractors. During testing, the dogs were presented with two choices: one matching the target in shape and the other in texture.

The test consited of eight trials—four target trials, where they had to choose between the trained target object and an object with similar shape or texture, and four generalization trials, where the dogs chose between two objects: one similar to the target in shape, but with a different texture, and the other with the same texture but different shape.

The dogs often approached the shape-matching object first but

ultimately selected the texture-matching object,

suggesting that first they first tended to use sight to approach the object that was visibly similar to the target in shape, but then

tactile cues were key in their final choice.

These results highlight dogs’ reliance on different sensory modalities, similar to humans only to some extent, when identifying and generalizing objects.

The video abstract is available at this link: https://youtu.be/io6K9vgNAOc?si=fd1lk1tDxHxtjrH9

The study has just been pubished in Scientific Reports: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-72244-y?utm_source=rct_congratemailt&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=oa_20241114&utm_content=10.1038/s41598-024-72244-y

This research is part of the Gifted Dogs research project: https://ethology.elte.hu/gifteddogs

The researchers are looking for dogs that know the name of their toys to participate with their owners in the studies.

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Journal

Scientific Reports

DOI

10.1038/s41598-024-72244-y 

Article Title

Shape and texture biases in dogs’ generalization of trained objects

Article Publication Date

24-Nov-2024