This dataset contains un-processed MRI data from **24 female adult Wistar rats**, acquired at the Functional Imaging Laboratory of the German Primate Center (Göttingen, Germany). The rats were anesthetized with **medetomidine** for up to six hours. The dataset includes anatomical scans acquired with a T2-weighted TurboRARE sequence (1 per rat) and functional scans (**BOLD fMRI**) acquired with a gradient-echo EPI sequence. Multiple functional scans were acquired per rat over the anesthesia duration (see */sub-id/sub-id_scans.tsv*), including scans with **electrical forepaw stimulation** (**task: efs, 283  runs in total**) and **resting state** scans (**task: rs, 295 runs in total**). The stimulus timing was identical for all efs fMRI runs (see */task-efs_events.tsv*), except for one (*/sub-07/func/sub-07_task-efs_run-01_events.tsv*). Details can be found here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-53144-y