A study by US researchers suggests that the similarities in how the brains of pet cats and humans age could help us understand more about brain diseases.
Brain aging involves changes that occur in later life, including cognitive decline due to diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
The team at Auburn University, Alabama, analysed data gathered from pets cats coming into the university’s Small Animal Hospital, as well as from more than 3,000 cats whose humans consented to the use of their information.
The study found that by the time a cat reaches 15, it is comparable in brain age to a person in their 80s. At this stage, some cats may begin to show signs of cognitive decline that resemble those seen in aging humans.
Previous studies with cats have also shown abnormal protein plaques and tangles, similar to those associated with Alzheimer’s disease in humans.
Other animals are useful to study brain aging, such as mice and monkeys, while studies are also underway into ageing in dogs, as they share a similar environment with their owners. Pet cats also share the same sort of environment, but are generally not as highly inbred as dogs and can often live longer.
Christine Charvet, at Auburn, who presented the work, told Nature: “To address challenges in human medicine, we need to draw from a wide range of model systems. Cats, lemurs, mice are all useful. We shouldn’t focus all our efforts on one.”