Cognitive neuroscience has enormous potential to infer and investigate the mental lives of animals. In humans, and to lesser extents in non-human primates and rodents, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is routinely used to infer perceptual processes, cognitive mechanisms, emotions, mental states and ultimately consciousness. With the inclusion of concepts such as “positive mental state”, “expectations”, and “perception” in a recent definition of animal welfare (ANSES, 2018), it is evident that cognitive neuroscience can help us understand the welfare needs of animals. Even when not investigating welfare per se cognitive neuroimaging can inform us about the perceptual and cognitive capacities and preferences of animals – determining factors of the welfare needs of a particular species or even individual (Nawroth 2019). Such knowledge would also contribute to the debate on the legal status of animals, in which cognitive capacities are an important consideration. Despite its potential impact, livestock cognitive neuroimaging is only at the stage of conception. Sheep use visual, olfactory and auditory cues for social communication. The neural substrates of olfactory and visual social interaction, in particular between a mother and her lamb, have been studied by cellular or electrophysiological approaches (Lévy 2017), while their auditory system remains unexplored.