Search Here

Researchers investigated whether dogs could detect stress in individuals with trauma histories, including those with PTSD.

A study published in Frontiers in Psychology aimed to validate the effectiveness of PTSD service dogs in identifying early signs of distress associated with PTSD symptoms.

Led by Laura Kiiroja of Dalhousie University, the study involved collecting breath samples from 26 individuals, 54% of whom met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD.

The participants underwent controlled exposure to personalized trauma cues to induce stress, providing breath samples during both calm and stressed states.

Two specially trained scent detection dogs, Ivy and Callie, were tasked with discriminating between these breath samples in a two-alternative forced choice (2AFC) discrimination experiment and a yes/no detection task.

Remarkably, the dogs achieved approximately 90% accuracy in the discrimination experiment and 74% to 81% accuracy in the detection experiment, showcasing their ability to detect stress-related VOCs.

Further analysis revealed correlations between the dogs' olfactory performance and the participants' self-reported emotional responses to trauma cue exposure.

Ivy's performance correlated with fear responses, while Callie's correlated with shame responses.

This suggests that Ivy may have been detecting stress markers associated with the sympathetic-adreno-medullary axis (SAM), such as adrenaline and noradrenaline, while Callie may have been detecting markers linked to the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA), such as glucocorticoids.

"We speculated that Ivy was attuned to sympathetic-adreno-medullar axis hormones (like adrenaline) and Callie was oriented to the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis hormones (like cortisol)," Kiiroja noted, according to Earth.com.

Kiiroja emphasized the significance of these findings, noting that they provide valuable insights into enhancing the training protocol of PTSD service dogs.

"This is important knowledge for training service dogs, as alerting to early-onset PTSD symptoms requires sensitivity to sympathetic-adreno-medullar axis hormones," Kiiroja added.

By improving the dogs' ability to detect early signs of distress, interventions could be initiated sooner, potentially mitigating the severity of PTSD symptoms.

While the study represents a promising step forward, Kiiroja stressed the need for further research with larger sample sizes to validate the dogs' ability to detect stress VOCs consistently across different contexts.

Nonetheless, the study lays the groundwork for future advancements in PTSD management and the utilization of service dogs as effective interventions for individuals with trauma histories.