Dogs will be able to dig out traumatic flashbacks from human minds by sniffing breath, claim scientists

A new research has claimedthat dogs can be made to sniff out an oncoming flashback which is a result of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Such dogs have been trained by scientists to recognise the scent present in people's breath which reflects their past traumatic experiences, claimed the study whose findings were published in the journal Frontiers in Allergy.

The scientists said that the findings can be used to make PTSD assistance dogs more effective.

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PTSD is a mental health issue which can be triggered by frightening, distressing or stressful events and those who have gone through those moments are generally haunted by flashbacks and nightmares.

While speaking to The Independent, Laura Kiiroja, who is part of the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Dalhousie University in Canada, said: “PTSD service dogs are already trained to assist people during episodes of distress. However, dogs are currently trained to respond to behavioural and physical cues. Our study showed that at least some dogs can also detect these episodes via breath.”

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The researchers stated that all humans have a “scent profile”. This profile is made up of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which are released from the body in different secretions such as sweat.

They added that there is some evidence that hints at dogs being capable of detecting VOCs related to human stress.

How the experiment was done?

To carry out the study, a team of 26 people were collected and more than half of them met the diagnostic requirements for PTSD.

The people were directed to breathe into a facemask and at the same time recall their past traumatic events. Twenty five dogs were recruited by the team to train in scent detection, however, only two dogs (Ivy and Callie) appeared skilled and motivated throughout the experiments, said the researchers.

“Both Ivy and Callie found this work inherently motivating. Their limitless appetite for delicious treats was also an asset. In fact, it was much harder to convince them to take a break than to commence work. Callie in particular made sure there was no dilly-dallying," Kiiroja said.

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The two dogs were trained by the researchers to recognise the odour from the facemasks. In the study, the canines were able to identify the stressed and non-stressed facemask samples.

The two dogs were also tested to check if they can detect VOCs associated with stress accurately. In that experiment, Ivy was 74 per cent accurateand Callie's performance was 81 per cent on spot, as per the team. Ivy’s performance was connected with anxiety and Callie’s was correlated with shame.

"Although both dogs performed at very high accuracy, they seemed to have a slightly different idea of what they considered a ‘stressed’ breath sample," Kiiroja said.

(With inputs from agencies)