Data for: Representation of rewards differing in their hedonic valence in the caudate nucleus correlates with the performance in a problem-solving task in dogs (Canis familiaris)

Abstract

We have investigated dogs’ (Canis familiaris) abilities in associating different sounds with food rewards of different incentive value. The establishment of the association was tested in a problem-solving behavioural paradigm, as well as in an fMRI study on the same subjects (N=20). The aim was to show behavioural, as well as parallel neural effects of the association formation between the two sounds and two different associated food rewards.
The latency of solving the problem was considered as an indicator of motivational state. In our behaviour study we found that dogs were quicker in solving a problem upon hearing the sound associated with food higher in reward value, suggesting that they have successfully associated the sounds with the corresponding food value. In the fMRI study, the cerebral response to the two sounds was compared both before and after the associative training. Two bilateral regions of interest were explored: the caudate nucleus and the amygdala. After the associative training the response in the caudate nucleus was higher to the sound related to a higher reward value food than to the sound related to a lower reward value food, which difference was not present before the associative training. We found an increase in the amygdala response to both sounds after the training. In a whole-brain representational similarity analysis, we found that cerebral patterns in the caudate nucleus to the two sounds were different only after the training. Moreover, we found a positive correlation between the dissimilarity index in the caudate nucleus for activation responses to the two sounds and the difference in latencies to solve the behavioural task: the quicker the dog solved the behavioural task the greater the difference in the neural representation of the two sounds was. In summary, family dogs’ brain activation patterns reflected their expectations based on what they learned about the relationship between two sounds and their associated rewards.

This dataset contains

• Raw data (four functional runs n = 20)
• Dog brain template
• ROI results (Caudate nucleus and amygdala percentage of BOLD signal change and  caudate nucleus response to sounds during the two post-training runs adding or not the Inter-scan interval as a covariate in the GLM model n = 20,)
• RSA results ( Dissimilarity change between sounds (post-training > pre-training) and dissimilarity index per participant n = 20)