A novel mechanism for cognitive enhancement in aged dogs with the use of a calcium-buffering protein

Dysregulation of intracellular calcium is associated with increased age and may be linked to cognitive dysfunction syndrome in dogs. This study examined the effectiveness of apoaequorin, a calcium-buffering protein, in modifying cognitive decline in aged beagle dogs in 2 separate studies. In the first study, 23 aged beagle dogs were separated into groups treated with either a placebo, 2.5 mg, or 5 mg doses and were assessed on discrimination learning, attention, and visuospatial memory tasks. The apoaequorin-treated animals showed improved performance on both the discrimination learning and attention tasks but did not differ from the controls on the spatial memory task. In a second study, we compared 24 dogs treated with either a 5-mg or 10-mg dose of apoaequorin or with 1 mg/kg selegiline (Anipryl), an approved treatment for cognitive dysfunction. The group administered 10-mg apoaequorin showed superior performance to the animals administered selegiline on both tasks. These results suggest the calcium-binding protein apoaequorin may have beneficial effects in treating cognitive dysfunction in aged beagle dogs and that apoaequorin is at least as beneficial as selegiline.