Can cat brains be used to understand ours?

To better understand the effects of aging on our brain, there might be a lot to learn by observing… cats.

In recent decades, research has focused more on mice. But cat brains may show signs of atrophy and cognitive decline that are more similar to what we see in humans. The review Nature reports results in this sense, presented at a recent conference on “comparative and evolutionary neurobiology”, and these results are part of a larger project, which aims precisely to compare the development of the brain in 150 species of mammals.

Originally, that is to say in the 1990s, the ambition of this project, Translating Time, was the study of brain development in general, and particularly its development in animals which have not not yet reached adulthood. But experts have gradually begun to see an interest in better understanding what happens when the animal ages. And one of the limitations with mice is that they only live a few years, which is not enough to draw any conclusions. In fact, they do not seem to develop the classic indicators of Alzheimer’s.

Hence the interest in dogs (the Dog Aging Project) and especially in cats (whose life expectancy is slightly higher). So far, the data reveals changes in the brain volume of older cats that resemble the changes seen in us. As well as an accumulation of plaques and abnormal proteins which is similar to what is found in us too.

In the absence of being able to give the cat cognitive tests, it is perhaps through this type of clue that we will learn a little more…

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