Identifying Neural Abnormalities in Anxious Dogs.

Researchers at Ghent University in Belgium have found that dogs with anxiety have stronger neural connections between the amygdala and other areas of the anxiety network in the brain compared to less anxious dogs. The study used non-invasive functional MRI to examine 25 healthy and 13 anxious dogs and found that functional connections between the amygdala and other parts of the anxiety circuit, particularly the hippocampus, were stronger than normal in anxious dogs. The researchers believe their findings show that resting-state fMRI is a good tool for studying dog-models of anxiety, and that future studies like this could increase our understanding of how anxiety-related circuitry in the brain is altered in anxiety-disordered animals, and possibly even humans with the condition.