Awake fMRI Reveals Brain Regions for Novel Word Detection in Dogs

Prichard, Ashley; Cook, Peter F.; Spivak, Mark; Chhibber, Raveena; Berns, Gregory S.

doi:10.3389/fnins.2018.00737

Cited by 30 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…Brain areas responding to human speech were identified here using various speech sounds and voices (all acoustic stimuli versus silence contrast of Model 1). These areas were highly similar to those found in previous dog fMRI studies using one speaker as stimulus 32,38,46 . Using an fMRI adaptation paradigm, we demonstrated that among speech-responsive cortical regions secondary (cESG), but not primary (mESG), auditory areas exhibited short-term repetition effects.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

Repetition enhancement to voice identities in the dog brain

Boros

Gábor

Szabó

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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paradigm that is particularly useful for studying the processing of fine changes in the speech signal 18,19,33-35. The fMRI adaptation method is based on the observation that when brain regions sensitive to a stimulus characteristic receive repetitive input, this induces altered brain activity 36. One apparent advantage of the adaptation paradigm for the purpose of the present study is that it can reveal neuronal specialization for subtle differences solely based on the variation in stimulus properties without requiring an active response from the subjects 36,37. We presented dogs with a Hungarian word "négy" [ne:ɟ] (four) that systematically varied either in its segmental content (change in the middle vowel) or in its suprasegmental content (change in voice identity). With such a manipulation we aimed at identifying the neural underpinnings of processing of segmental and suprasegmental cues found in human speech. We hypothesized that similarly to humans, the analysis of these cues in dogs takes place at higher levels of the processing hierarchy, i.e. outside the primary auditory cortex. Additionally, if these cues are processed by separate mechanisms in the dog brain, then these may also be reflected in distinct repetition effects and/or hemispheric bias. Methods participants. Twelve dogs participated in the study (7 males, 5 females, aged from 1 to 10 years old, mean age 4.6 years, breed information: 6 golden retrievers, 5 border collies, 1 cairn terrier). The owners of dogs volunteered to take part in the project without any monetary compensation and gave written informed consent. Experimental procedures met the national and European guidelines for animal care and were approved by the local ethical committee (Pest Megyei Kormányhivatal Élelmiszerlánc-Biztonsági és Állategészségügyi Igazgatósága XIV-I-001/520-4/2012, Budapest, Hungary). The dogs were previously trained to lie motionless in the scanner for more than 8 minutes, details of the training procedure are described elsewhere 38 .

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

Repetition enhancement to voice identities in the dog brain

Boros

Gábor

Szabó

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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“…The auditory network identified in our study corresponds with the primary auditory cortex in dogs and auditory RSN identified in awake dogs [17]. Activation of this area by sound has been shown in previous studies in awake unrestrained dogs [14,56]. While Andics and colleagues showed common functions in dog and human voice processing [14], Prichard et al reported that most dogs were able to discriminated pseudo-words from trained words [56].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

“…Activation of this area by sound has been shown in previous studies in awake unrestrained dogs [14,56]. While Andics and colleagues showed common functions in dog and human voice processing [14], Prichard et al reported that most dogs were able to discriminated pseudo-words from trained words [56]. Interestingly, in anaesthetised dogs, Bach and colleagues found only subcortical but no cortical response to auditory stimuli [36].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Resting state networks of the canine brain under sevoflurane anaesthesia

et al. 2020

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Resting-state functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (rs-fMRI) has become an established technique in humans and reliably determines several resting state networks (RSNs) simultaneously. Limited data exist about RSN in dogs. The aim of this study was to investigate the RSNs in 10 healthy beagle dogs using a 3 tesla MRI scanner and subsequently perform group-level independent component analysis (ICA) to identify functionally connected brain networks. Rs-fMRI sequences were performed under steady state sevoflurane inhalation anaesthesia. Anaesthetic depth was titrated to the minimum level needed for immobilisation and mechanical ventilation of the patient. This required a sevoflurane MAC between 0.8 to 1.2. Group-level ICA dimensionality of 20 components revealed distributed sensory, motor and higher-order networks in the dogs' brain. We identified in total 7 RSNs (default mode, primary and higher order visual, auditory, two putative motor-somatosensory and one putative somatosensory), which are common to other mammals including humans. Identified RSN are remarkably similar to those identified in awake dogs. This study proves the feasibility of rs-fMRI in anesthetized dogs and describes several RSNs, which may set the basis for investigating pathophysiological characteristics of various canine brain diseases.

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“…Beyond our previous study on dogs’ lexical processing 9 , there have been two recent dog fMRI studies that used words as stimuli, but neither of these two was designed to reveal lexical effects. One study found an increased activity for novel pseudowords compared to trained words in the broadly defined parietotemporal cortex, but that effect was related to novelty processing rather than to lexical processing 47 . The other study showed that stimulus-reward neural associations are formed less effectively for verbal than for visual or olfactory cues 48 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multilevel fMRI adaptation for spoken word processing in the awake dog brain

Gábor

Gácsi

Szabó

et al. 2020

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Human brains process lexical meaning separately from emotional prosody of speech at higher levels of the processing hierarchy. Recently we demonstrated that dog brains can also dissociate lexical and emotional prosodic information in human spoken words. To better understand the neural dynamics of lexical processing in the dog brain, here we used an event-related design, optimized for fMRI adaptation analyses on multiple time scales. We investigated repetition effects in dogs' neural (BOLD) responses to lexically marked (praise) words and to lexically unmarked (neutral) words, in praising and neutral prosody. We identified temporally and anatomically distinct adaptation patterns. In a subcortical auditory region, we found both short-and long-term fMRI adaptation for emotional prosody, but not for lexical markedness. In multiple cortical auditory regions, we found long-term fMRI adaptation for lexically marked compared to unmarked words. This lexical adaptation showed right-hemisphere bias and was age-modulated in a near-primary auditory region and was independent of prosody in a secondary auditory region. Word representations in dogs' auditory cortex thus contain more than just the emotional prosody they are typically associated with. These findings demonstrate multilevel fMRI adaptation effects in the dog brain and are consistent with a hierarchical account of spoken word processing. During spoken word processing, the human brain separates lexical meaning from emotional prosody 1-3. Lexical processing entails speech sound sequence recognition and the matching of such sequences to previously associated meanings. This requires access to pre-existing speech sound sequence representations, assumedly involving higher levels of the speech processing hierarchy 3,4. In contrast, emotional prosody processing is largely based upon simple acoustic cues (such as pitch and pitch change) 5-8. In an fMRI study with awake dogs (Canis familiaris) listening to words, we found evidence that the ability to separately process lexical information and emotional prosody is not specific to humans 9. Dogs showed an overall right hemispheric bias for lexically marked (praise) but not for lexically unmarked (neutral) words, independently of emotional prosody. While this initial study identified a set of auditory brain regions in dogs that are responsive to human speech in general, the distribution of labour among these regions remained unclear. To functionally characterize speech-responsive regions and better understand the relationship of lexical and emotional prosody processing in dogs, here we followed up directly on our previous work, using the same stimuli, but applying a multilevel fMRI adaptation paradigm. Habituation/dishabituation paradigms are successfully used in various species, including dogs, to examine whether individuals are able to distinguish among certain stimuli 10,11. This behavioural priming phenomenon is often linked to a reduction in neural activity associated with repeated stimulus processing, which can be measured ...

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Awake fMRI Reveals Brain Regions for Novel Word Detection in Dogs

Cited by 30 publications

References 54 publications

Repetition enhancement to voice identities in the dog brain

Repetition enhancement to voice identities in the dog brain

Resting state networks of the canine brain under sevoflurane anaesthesia

Multilevel fMRI adaptation for spoken word processing in the awake dog brain

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