Dogs Help Improve Moods Among Teens in Treatment

June 3, 2013 — Lindsay Ellsworth is prescribing a new, mood-boosting therapy for teenagers in drug and alcohol treatment: shelter dogs.

On Friday afternoons, about four dogs from the Spokane Humane Society take a field trip to Excelsior Youth Center as a group of teenage boys eagerly await their arrival. Ellsworth, a doctoral candidate in animal sciences at Washington State University, organizes the meet-ups where participants can help brush, feed and play with the dogs.

"We found one of the most robust effects of interacting with the dogs was increased joviality," she said. "Some of the words the boys used to describe their moods after working with the dogs were 'excited,' 'energetic' 'and happy.'"

The relationship between dogs and humans is prehistoric, but Ellsworth's study is the first of its kind to demonstrate how dog-interaction activities improve mood among teenagers living in residential treatment centers.

A method to the gladness

Once a week, during the daily recreation time at Excelsior, Ellsworth breaks about eight participants into two groups. One group plays pool, video games or basketball provided in the treatment center. The other group interacts with the shelter dogs for about an hour.

Before the activity, participants identify 60 mood descriptors on a scale of one to five on what is known as the PANAS-X, a self-reporting method organizational psychologists use to scale and study emotion. After the activity, the participants fill out the same scale.

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Why Teens Are More Prone to Addiction, Mental Illness

By comparing the brain's response to a food reward in adult and teen rats, researchers have pinpointed some differences that might explain why adolescents take more risks and are more prone to addiction, depression and schizophrenia.

"The brain region that is very critical in planning your actions and in habit formation is directly tapped by reward in adolescents, which means the reward could have a stronger influence in their decision-making, in what they do next, as well as forming habits in adolescents," study researcher Bita Moghaddam, of the University of Pittsburgh, told LiveScience. "

Teenagers could do stupid things in response to a situation not because they are stupid, but because their brains are working differently. Somehow they perceive and react to a situation differently." The study was performed in rats, but teenagers throughout the animal kingdom show the same risk-taking and impulsive behaviors as human teens, so the results are likely to be applicable in humans too, the researchers said.

Other studies show that the teen brain is also more susceptible to stress than the adult brain. Teenage brains are especially susceptible to addiction and mental illness, and the differences in the brain at that time may play a big role in these diseases. "If your brain is processing the exact same thing differently, that could give us clues as to why their brain is more vulnerable," Moghaddam said. "By understanding what is happening in the brains of adolescents we can better understand how to prevent disease."

Continued: http://www.livescience.com/17938-teens-prone-addiction-mental-illness.html