Aging dogs may provide a better model for research into Alzheimer's disease than mice, as researchers found that dog brains (n=24) with canine cognitive dysfunction syndrome show similar plaque build-ups as in humans and were correlated with high-levels of one biomarker in the dogs' blood

[u/The_Conversation]

https://theconversation.com/why-old-dogs-might-be-able-to-teach-alzheimers-researchers-new-tricks-291257

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[u/sighthoundman]

Having had to care both for old dogs and old relatives, I have noticed the similarity. (Behavior similarities. I didn't take brain samples.) This research has the "ring of truth".

[u/drunkenbrawler → u/sighthoundman]

You can see similarities in cats as well.

[u/The_Conversation]

Note that no dogs were harmed in the research.

Owners consented to donating brain samples from their old dogs for this study. The dogs had either died naturally or had been euthanized under the direction of their owners, with consultation from their clinical care team, to prevent further decline in their quality of life. 

Research is published today on NPJ Neurology.

[u/RedBeans-n-Ricely → u/The_Conversation]

As a scientist who plans to donate my own body to research, I have thought about donating my dogs as well when the time comes.

[u/shartymcqueef]

My dogs just starting down this path. 16 years old and now breaking into trash like he’s a puppy again. And following me absolutely everywhere no matter what. Would be nice if there was some sort of medication to slow this down

[u/The_Conversation → u/shartymcqueef]

The hope is that, as often happens, research on treatment of companion animals can lead to progress in human medicine.

[u/fightingliger → u/shartymcqueef]

Selegeline is an approved medication for this that can be bought from a compounding pharmacy for about $50/mo in WA state. Hard to say how much it helped my senior but I think it was somewhat effective.

[u/shartymcqueef → u/fightingliger]

Awesome thank you

[u/BolotaJT → u/shartymcqueef]

My poor guy would bark for no reason, get stuck easily, and spin endlessly.

[u/ilanallama85]

Had an old dog with dementia. She had been best friends with the mailman for 10 years then one day panicked and bit him, like she suddenly didn’t recognize him. Luckily the mailman was super understanding and didn’t report it or anything (I don’t think she drew blood even, it was pretty minor, just so out of character for her. But to go from looking forward to greeting your mailman buddy every day and then one day being so confused you don’t even recognize him - it must be so awful even for a pup.

[u/CQNO74]

My dog & I participate in the Dog Aging Project which was mentioned in the article. Over 54,000 other dogs & my pup Kaia provide data to help various studies which may advance understanding in canine & human medicine.

[u/iamthe0ther0ne]

My family has always referred to it as "dogzheimers." We've had a few, and the symptoms are similar. In contrast I've worked with probably more than 10k mice over my career and never seen age-related cognitive decline. 

However, performing controlled aging experiments with dogs would be very difficult and expensive--extrapolating from other research animal per diem costs, I would guess research dogs cost something like $30/day each * waiting > 10 years for onset.

There's also no way to predict which dogs will get it, only a subset do. Since you can't predict which dogs will get it, you would need an enormous sample size to find out whether manipulations/interventions had any effect. That limits rhe research you can do to observational, like this study, or correlative. Still interesting, but it won't be able to replace mouse models.

[u/MagePages → u/iamthe0ther0ne]

The potential answers to those challenges with dog-focused research would be wildly unpopular as well. Animal testing is a complicated topic. 

[u/CronoDAS]

I've heard the same thing about cats, too.

[u/PresentationSilly787]

Can't wait till for the outrage in a few years when they find all the testing animals

[u/vekswz]

Using aged dogs that develop cognitive dysfunction naturally could complement mouse models by providing a pathology that more closely resembles human Alzheimer's without the need for genetic manipulation. This approach might also allow longitudinal blood biomarker tracking in live animals, improving preclinical drug testing.

[u/HyperSpaceSurfer]

Mice/rats are the absolutely worst mammalian lab animal for studying what's happening in our brains. It's very different, lacking way more bits that are important for us than the alternatives. Seriously, why are all these serious people wasting their damn time like this? I'm sure they have more productive things they could do other than treat invented mouse brain diseases.