09/19/2026
: What can a blood test tell us about a dog’s aging brain? 🧠🐾
As dogs age, some develop canine cognitive dysfunction (CCD)—a progressive condition that can cause changes in memory, learning, sleep, behavior, and awareness. But diagnosing CCD today relies heavily on behavioral assessments and ruling out other medical conditions.
A recent study from researchers at Colorado State University and collaborating institutions explored whether biomarkers found in blood and cerebrospinal fluid could provide another window into what’s happening inside an aging dog’s brain.
Researchers looked at several biomarkers associated with neurodegeneration, including neurofilament light chain (NfL), GFAP, and amyloid-beta.
🔬 One particularly interesting finding: blood levels of NfL were associated with both age and cognitive impairment. Because NfL can be measured in blood, this raises the possibility that a relatively simple blood test could someday contribute to how we identify and monitor cognitive decline in dogs.
But there’s an important catch: NfL isn't specific to cognitive dysfunction. It can also increase with other neurological diseases and with normal aging, so researchers emphasize that a combination of biomarkers, clinical assessments, and behavioral information will likely be more useful than relying on a single marker.
Why does this matter beyond our dogs? 🐶➡️🧑
Dogs naturally experience aging and neurodegenerative disease, and many of the biological changes seen in canine cognitive dysfunction overlap with those observed in human neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. Studying these changes in dogs may therefore help researchers better understand both canine and human brain aging.
This is the power of comparative research: studying naturally occurring disease in our canine companions can help us ask better questions about brain health across species. 💚
Read the full open access article here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12917-025-05027-w
