New York, Nov 24 (IANS): Your dog loves you as much as you love it, researchers confirmed in a study that looked inside the brain of our canine friends using imaging technology.

Not only do dogs seem to love their owners back, they actually see them as their family, the researchers found.

"Bonding with owners is much more important for dogs than other pets," lead author of the study Attila Andics, was quoted as saying by Mic.

The study used neuroimaging to study odour processing in the canine brain.

And of all the smells the dogs smelled during the MRI, it was only the scent of the dogs' owners that triggered activity in the caudate nucleus of the brain - otherwise known as the "reward centre".

Dogs actually prioritised the scent of humans above everything else, the study noted.

The results of the study seem to support previous canine neuroimaging research that showed that there are remarkable similarities to the way dog and human brains react to emotional cues.