Researchers in Hungary are studying pet dogs to help understand the ageing process in humans.
Living with people means that dogs have similar daily social and environmental experiences.
They are also susceptible to comparable age-related diseases, such as a form of dementia like Alzheimer’s.
The EVOLOR project at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, has collected data from more than 20,000 dogs revealing results similar to human ageing on brain activity, cognition, personality and gene expression.
“In recent years, the dog has grown to be one of the most important animals for researchers who aim to understand the biological background of complex traits,” said researcher Enikő Kubinyi.