Lunar New Year of the Dog

A Pomeranian dog-shaped statue displayed at a hotel ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year of the Dog in Manila, Philippines, on Thursday. The 2018 Chinese New Year Day is on Friday, February 16. Reuters PARIS: Close friends have eerily comparable neural responses to life experiences, according to a study released Tuesday.

“Our results suggest that friends process the world around them in exce ptionally similar ways,” said l e a d a u t h o r C a r o l y n P a rk i n s o n , director of the Computational Social Neuroscience Lab at the University of California in Los Angeles.

Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to compare which regions of the brain lit up as 42 volunteers watched short clips from news reports, music videos, comedy skits and documentaries, researchers were able to identify who among them were friends.

The closer the relationship, the more alike the neural patter ns in parts of the brain governing emotional response, high-level reasoning, and the capacity to focus one’s attention.

“Friends had the most similar neural activity patterns, followed by friends-of-friends,” the authors said in a statement.

Scientists long ago understood that “birds of a feather flock together” when it comes to human social networks, with people attracted more easily to those of the same age, physical appearance and ethnic background, as well as other demographic categories.