Our Faces in the Dog's Brain: Functional Imaging Reveals Temporal Cortex Activation during Perception of Human Faces

PLoS One. 2016 Mar 2;11(3):e0149431. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0149431. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

Dogs have a rich social relationship with humans. One fundamental aspect of it is how dogs pay close attention to human faces in order to guide their behavior, for example, by recognizing their owner and his/her emotional state using visual cues. It is well known that humans have specific brain regions for the processing of other human faces, yet it is unclear how dogs' brains process human faces. For this reason, our study focuses on describing the brain correlates of perception of human faces in dogs using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We trained seven domestic dogs to remain awake, still and unrestrained inside an MRI scanner. We used a visual stimulation paradigm with block design to compare activity elicited by human faces against everyday objects. Brain activity related to the perception of faces changed significantly in several brain regions, but mainly in the bilateral temporal cortex. The opposite contrast (i.e., everyday objects against human faces) showed no significant brain activity change. The temporal cortex is part of the ventral visual pathway, and our results are consistent with reports in other species like primates and sheep, that suggest a high degree of evolutionary conservation of this pathway for face processing. This study introduces the temporal cortex as candidate to process human faces, a pillar of social cognition in dogs.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Attention / physiology
  • Brain Mapping / methods
  • Cognition / physiology
  • Cues
  • Dogs
  • Emotions / physiology
  • Face / physiology*
  • Facial Expression
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / methods
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging / methods
  • Male
  • Photic Stimulation / methods
  • Temporal Lobe / physiology*
  • Visual Pathways / physiology
  • Visual Perception / physiology*

Associated data

  • figshare/10.6084/M9.FIGSHARE.2070007

Grants and funding

LVC and RHP are doctoral students from Programa de Doctorado en Ciencias Biomédicas at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), and received fellowships 260381 and 260395 from the National Council of Science and Technology in Mexico (CONACyT). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.