Sleep Study Reveals Wolves Can be Handled, Comforted Like Dogs

In a recently published study, for the first time, scientists measured the wolf's sleep, the dog's wild counterpart.

According to a Phys.org report, in their research, researchers at the Department of Ethology at Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary applied fully non-invasive EEG measurements, akin to human sleep EEG approaches.

The growing interest in canine sleep research stems from its advantages in investigating the sleep of a domesticated species adapted to the human environment.

Evolutionary adaptions to environmental conditions like sleeping in a protected environment could have shaped humans' sleep.

Animals' Sleep Adapting to Human Environment

Consequently, similar alterations might be expected in other species' sleep adapted to the human environment. For instance, dogs, similarly to humans, are sleeping more superficially in an unfamiliar environment.

To get a better insight into the impacts of domestication and cohabitation with humans on sleep phenotypes and physiology, having the dogs compared to their wild counterpart, the wolf, offers a distinctive opportunity.

According to Anna Bálint, a researcher from the MTA-ELTE Comparative Ethology Research Group, even though dog-wolf comparative studies have already been carried out in several fields of research, which include behavioral and genetic research, the wolves' neural processes stay a massively unexplored field.

In their study published in Scientific Reports, the researchers gauged the sleep EEG of seven hand-raised, extensively socialized wolves, using the same approach as has been used in family dogs.

The study investigators said they were able to successfully gauge all sleep stages, including drowsiness, deep sleep, and REM, which are observed before in dogs.

Wolves Similar to Dogs

It may appear surprising that wEEG can gauge wolves like the so-called "good old family pets," the dogs.

Nonetheless, hand-raising and strongly socializing wolves from a very early age can be handled, not to mention comfortable, in a much similar way to dogs.

During the experiments, wolves were surrounded by familiar people, who petted and caressed them until they calmed down, dozed off, and ultimately fell asleep.

Each time the wolves were aroused, the caretaker and investigator calmed wolves by cuddling and praising them until they settled again, a similar Bioengineer.org report specified.

Vivien Reicher, the study's first author and Ph.D. student at the Ethnology Department of ELTE. Such a finding is particularly intriguing since the amount of REM sleep has been associated with many different impacts, which include neurodevelopment, domestication, stress, and consolidation.

Easily Applicable Approach

The leader of this project, Márta Gácsi, who's also a senior researcher at the MTA-ELTA Comparative Ethology Research Group, explained that even though the sample size in the current research is low and the age distribution of the subjects is extremely skewed to draw comparative conclusions, it can be regarded as a vital initial step in collecting sufficient amount of data to describe the sleep of wolves adequately.

Therefore, she continued, they suggest that using the dependable, easily applicable approach in different labs may form the basis of the international, multisite collection of similar samples, enabling generalizable scientific conclusions.

Information about wolves sleeping like dogs are shown on Family Dog Project Research Group's YouTube video below:

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