ArticleBiology open2026
Cat brains age like humans: translating time shows pet cats live to be natural models for human aging.
Article in Biology open, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
- Update of
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Whether an animal can achieve a lifespan equivalent to a human in their 80s remains an open question. Cats may serve as valuable models for human aging because there is some evidence that they can develop human related aging patterns. Here, we leveraged 3754 observations extracted from age-related brain variation, blood chemistry profiles, and other data to equate ages across the lifespan of humans and cats. We used structural MR scans (7T and 3T MRI) from pet and colony cats to quantify age-related brain metrics during aging. Cat and human brains exhibit similar age-related patterns of brain atrophy. We used common patterns of brain change and other health-related metrics to generate age alignments across the lifespan to late stages of life (e.g. an 80-year-old human equates to a 15-year-old cat). We also collected observations across multiple cat populations, including pets, zoos, and colonies to encapsulate individual variation in cross-species age alignments. One major finding to emerge is that pet cats are studied at significantly older ages than colony cats, and pet cats demonstrate a high degree of age-related brain atrophy. We demonstrate that it is feasible to translate ages across the lifespan of humans and cats.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.