Neural Responses of Pet Dogs Witnessing Their Caregiver's Positive Interactions with a Conspecific: An fMRI Study.

ABSTRACT: We have limited knowledge on how dogs perceive humans and their actions. Various researchers investigated how they process human facial expressions, but their brain responses to complex social scenarios remain unclear. While undergoing fMRI, we exposed pet dogs to videos showing positive social and neutral nonsocial interactions between their caregivers and another conspecific. Our main interest was how the dogs responded to their caregivers (compared to a stranger) engaging in a pleasant interaction with another dog that could be seen as social rival. We hypothesized that the dogs would show activation increases in limbic areas such as the amygdala, hypothalamus, and insula and likely show higher attention and arousal during the positive caregiver-dog interaction. When contrasting the soc

SUBMITTER: Karl S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8382916 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature