[Source: Reuters]A peek inside dogs’ brains revealed man’s best friend can distinguish emotions in people’s faces, researchers at the ​University of Vienna have found, providing what they said ‌was the first ever evidence of such an ability. In the study, researchers used machine learning to analyse brain scans of 12 dogs as ​the animals viewed images of human faces displaying different ​emotions, the university said in a press release on ⁠Tuesday. Researchers found that brain regions linked to higher cognitive functions ​and reward processing — the temporal cortex and caudate nucleus — were activated ​only by images of happy strangers. The researchers next plan to investigate how dogs integrate other cues, including ​body language, voice nuances and scent, to interpret ​the humans ⁠around them. The researchers added that participants in ⁠the study ​were all pets from loving families ​and cautioned that dogs outside such environments may respond to human emotional cues ​differently.