Just like humans, old cats can suffer from dementia. Common symptoms are that the cat meows more and more, becomes confused and has a harder time finding the food bowl and litter box. Cats also get changes in the brain that resemble the changes that people with the most common dementia disease, Alzheimer's, get, shows a new study.
By imaging the brain tissue of 25 dead cats, researchers at, among other places, the University of Edinburgh saw that the cats' brains got accumulations of the protein amyloid-beta and lost synapses, writes Science Daily. The same type of changes occur in people with Alzheimer's.
By studying the brains of demented cats, researchers now hope that they will understand the disease process better and develop new treatments that help both humans and cats with dementia.
The study is published in the journal European Journal of Neuroscience.
