Category: feline research

Cat Brains Age Like Ours, Research Shows

Lifelong changes in the brains of felines more closely resemble aging in human brains. Studying cognition and cognitive decline in cats could help us better understand brain aging in general, scientists say.

For almost the entire history of modern science, rodents have served as a stand-in for humans in research into everything from metabolism to autoimmune responses.

They’ve even been the go-to for studies examining cognitive decline, diseases and neural mechanisms.

But now research shows there’s a better model closer to home. It turns out cat brains more closely resemble human brains in many respects, particularly in terms of aging and its effect on our mental faculties.

From Nature:

“As cats age, their brains show signs of atrophy and cognitive decline that more closely resemble the deterioration seen in ageing humans than do the changes in the brains of ageing mice, according to findings presented last month at the Lake Conference on Comparative and Evolutionary Neurobiology near Seattle, Washington.

The results are part of a large project, called Translating Time, that compares brain development across more than 150 mammal species, and is now expanding to include data on ageing. The hope is that the data will aid researchers trying to crack the causes of age-related diseases, particularly conditions that affect the brain, such as Alzheimer’s disease.”

One drawback to using mice is they simply don’t live long enough for their brains to deteriorate in ways many human and non-human animals do, scientists told Nature. They also have species-specific mechanisms that ward off certain degenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s.

Not only do cats live longer, but their brain development and decline mirrors our own on a shorter time scale, scientists say. Tracking brain changes in cats is also more helpful than doing the same with dogs, who have been radically changed by breeding. Felines are mostly left to mate as they please, meaning they’re closer to their natural form, allowing for more useful data.

a cute cat lying on the couch
Credit: Pranjall Kuma/Pexels

Looking to our furry friends makes sense anecdotally as well. Every cat lover has seen the unfortunate confusion and forgetfulness that can afflict senior cats. Older cats tend to sleep a lot more, which is significant for a species notorious for its extravagant snoozing habits.

Thankfully, efforts like the Catage Project do not result in more cats being used in laboratory experiments. Researchers draw their data from veterinary records, brain scans and blood samples.

When asked about how his species could help humans better understand things like cognitive diseases and decline because of their similarity to humans, Buddy the Cat declared the research “fake news.”

“Where’s my bumblebee toy?” Buddy asked. “Did you hide my bumblebee toy? I’ve been looking everywhere for it!”

When told the toy was right were it’s supposed to be, in his toy basket, the 10-year-old tabby grew irritated.

“Fake news!” he meowed. “You put it back there just to mess with me. I’m onto your games! Now where did I put my favorite milk bottle cap?”

Tribe Discovers Ancient Three-Toed Cat’s Fossilized Footprint Deep In Forest

The strange footprint may date back as far as 35 million years ago, according to a preliminary analysis.

Before house cats, tigers and lions, before sabretooth cats and their scimitar-toothed relatives, Pseudaelurus (pseudo-cat) stalked the forests and plains of Europe, Asia and North America between eight and 20 million years ago.

Before Pseudaelurus, Proailurus — an animal whose name literally means “before cats” — stalked the Earth beginning 30 million years in the past.

Proailurus was thought to be the earliest true feliform ancestor, but now there may be evidence of a felid or feliform animal that predates both Proailurus and Pseudaelurus. Feliform is a term that encompasses cat-like creatures both extinct and extant, from familiar felines to civets and mongoose.

Deep in South India’s Nallamala Forest, near one of the country’s largest tiger reserves, members of the aboriginal Chenchu tribe found a fossil that could put the cat lineage back even further.

The fossil is well-preserved and clearly defined, made by an animal whose paw was about the size of an adult man’s hand. It bears a striking resemblance to tiger pug marks, but perhaps the most striking feature is its three toes.

Feliform fossil
The recently discovered fossil. Credit: Times of India

“Based on the distinctive characteristics of the sandstone, identified as the Cuddapah subgroup Quartzitic sandstone, the estimated rock’s age is approximately 35 million years,” archaeologist Arun Vasireddy told the Times of India. “It was around this time that sandstones were formed and it is likely that the animal would have cast its prints.”

Biologists have had to reshuffle their picture of felid lineage many times over the past century and a half as new discoveries uncover previously unknown species of cats and cat-like creatures. Since they first appeared, cats have taken hundreds of different forms with significant variations in size, appearance, hunting methods and preferred terrain.

The experts aren’t popping the champagne yet. There’s a lot more work to do before they can declare a newly-discovered species or even offer more than educated guesses about its niche and appearance.

Nallamala Forest may yet hold more secrets, and research teams will look for additional prints as well as potential remains. It’s a process that will unfold over years and decades, perhaps even longer.

Still, it’s a tantalizing clue about the past and the origin of some of Earth’s most iconic animals.

In the meantime, Vasireddy said, “nothing can be said clearly until further research.”

Homotherium_serum
A reconstruction of Homotherium, a scimitar-tooth cat that first appeared about four million years ago. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Styriofelis lorteti predates modern pantherine cats and was the size of a small leopard. Credit: Spanish National Research Council and the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid
Fossil foot
The recently-discovered fossil compared to a man’s foot. Credit: Times of India

Americans Are Lousy At Taking Care Of Their Cats, Poll Claims

The respondents also admitted they “forget” to feed their furry friends an average of three times a week. Say what?!?

Americans don’t know basic facts about their cats, fail to properly care for them and overestimate how well they do as pet parents, according to a new poll.

The survey of cat owners commissioned by PetSafe found most people in the US who have cats in their home don’t know their feline friends typically have 18 toes, for example, and don’t realize cats purr when they’re content as well as when they’re trying to soothe themselves.

Respondents said they frequently forget to refill their furry little buddies’ water bowls, but the thing that really blew my mind is that people supposedly forget to feed their cats an average of three times a week.

How is that possible?!?

The number of times Bud has missed a meal in 10 years is precisely zero. Even when I had COVID, even when half my face was frozen with Bell’s Palsy and I was throbbing with the worst headache I’d ever endured, I fed the little guy according to his schedule.

It’s not just that he reminds me. There’s a whole ritual around it, an elaborate series of increasingly affirmative and urgent meows that quickly give way to panic if Buddy doesn’t see activity associated with a bowl of fresh wet food and water delivered to his nook.

buddy_delicious

The pre-reminder reminders begin about 45 minutes to an hour before feeding time, with Bud’s infallible internal clock signaling upcoming meal time.

At the 30 minute mark Bud will put himself directly in my line of sight and stare at me. Then he’ll start to meow at regular intervals, and if I’m not up and heading to the kitchen by T-minus 15 minutes to yums, the meowing begins in earnest.

Even the act of retrieving a pack of wet food from the Buddy Cabinet is highly formalized and ritualistic: the little dude grunts and trills excitedly as I open the seal, dump the food in his bowl, mash it up and pile it in the middle the way he likes it.

Then he leads me back to his nook, looking over his head every few paces to make sure I’m right behind him, even though we’ve done this song and dance literally 7,318 times as of today. (It’s probably more than that since I fed him more than twice a day when he was a kitten, and doesn’t include his bowl of dry food for his late night snack/overnight emergency supply so he doesn’t have to wake me up if he’s hungry.)

I realize Bud’s a bit of a tyrant and there’s no peace until he gets what he wants, but still. Cats are cats. So really, how does anyone “forget” to feed their cat?

Does Your Feline Overlord Have A Favorite Genre Of Music?

Cats have exceptional hearing abilities and can detect sounds in frequencies well beyond what the human ear is capable of hearing, but can they appreciate music?

The question of whether cats appreciate music is an interesting one, and we still don’t have definitive answers despite attempts to make music for our furry friends and study the way they respond to sound.

We’ve mentioned the ongoing efforts to make tunes for felines on this blog before, and previously experimented by playing composer David Teie‘s “Music for Cats“ for our brave volunteer, Buddy.

Excited by the possibility of music specifically designed for cats, and a study in the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery that found it had a calming effect on the species, we queued up a track and watched the Budster’s reaction:

“Using Buddy as my test subject, I went to Youtube, selected the track Cozmo’s Air from “Music for Cats” and sat back, expecting Bud to start nodding his furry head at any moment.

Instead his ears pricked up, did their radar-dish swivel toward the speakers, and his eyes went wide. As the song gained volume and intensity, Bud’s ears and whiskers snapped back and he let out a clearly anxious “yerrrrrrrrrrppp!” I tried to calm him down, to no avail, and a second track didn’t improve things.

He wasn’t having it.”

Over at Catster, Christopher Bays writes about his cat, Olga, and her relationship with music.

Olga “has listened to classic rock, jazz, blues, classical, heavy metal, punk (or new wave?), and accordion tunes from Hungary, and it all sounds the same to her,” Bays concludes.

djfunkybud
“Spinning the megamix, bro.”/PITB

Noting that our tastes change as we age, Bays said he’s thankful Olga wasn’t around during his teenage punk and metal phase (ditto), and notes she’s not particularly interested in any sounds coming from electronic devices, with the exception of the roaring MGM lion. (Fun fact: The famous “lion’s roar” is actually a recording of a tiger played over footage of a lion yawning. The creators apparently felt lions don’t sound sufficiently badass enough.)

Bays points out our cats don’t exactly have control over what we play, and while that’s true, if you’re a genre-hopper like me, you’ve probably observed your furry friend’s reaction to various types of music.

Given the fact that the small amount of research done so far indicates cats do respond to tunes — and the existence of music-loving animals like Kiki and Snowball — I think felines probably are capable of enjoying the organized, rhythmic arrangements of sounds we call music.

I can’t say whether a favorite track can unleash a wave of emotion, nostalgia or energy the way it can for us humans, but I’ve played a lot of music around Bud and even played music for him on my guitar and keyboard.

He seems very comfortable with old jazz, soul and funk, he comfortably loafs when I’m in the mood for classic 90s hip hop, and he seems to tolerate the prog rock of Coheed and Cambria well enough. More recently he’s been on a 90s nostalgia trip with me: Blues Traveler, the Spin Doctors, Nirvana, Oasis, Better Than Ezra, Letters to Cleo, Ash, Weezer, Blur, The Roots.

And he seems especially chill in the sonic presence of synthwave, also called retrowave, an EDM-inflected genre that evokes nostalgia for an era that never really existed outside of 80s retrofuturism. It’s highly rhythmic, with steady 4/4 beats and vintage synthesizers cranking out arpeggios that rise and fall like waves, which may be a source of comfort to a species that likes things just the way they are without any big surprises.

Have you noticed your cats responding to music? What’s your kitty’s favorite genre or song? Is there anything they clearly don’t like?

Study: Humans Aren’t Great At Judging Feline Moods, But We Can Improve

People who were asked to identify feline moods based only on audio of meows fared the worst in the study.

A new study suggests people misinterpret their cats’ moods often, but offers an easy fix.

A group of researchers from Paris Nanterre University split participants into three groups: one that was shown soundless video and images of cats, a second group that heard audio-only recordings of feline vocalizations, and a third group that had the benefit of video and sound.

Participants from the first two groups misinterpreted feline moods as much as 28 percent of the time, the study found, but people who had the benefit of seeing and hearing cats correctly identified their mental state almost 92 percent of the time.

The study also yielded another insight: people are much better at accurately assessing positive moods than they are at spotting an upset or antagonistic cat.

cute cat with blue eyes
Credit: Sami Aksu/Pexels

The findings indicate we’re better off giving our cats our full attention than, say, jumping to conclusions about what they want based solely on their vocalizations or the position of their tails. It seems obvious, but how many of us have our eyes on a screen or we’re multitasking when our cats want our attention?

Of 630 people who participated in the research, 166 were professionals in animal-related fields like veterinary medicine and animal behaviorism, while the rest were lay people. There was a major gender imbalance among participants, with 574 women, 51 men and five people who didn’t identify with either gender.

It’s not clear how such an imbalance might skew the results, and it would be nice to see follow-up research evenly split between women and men.