Animal Nutrition
CanCog has considerable experience with nutritional research. CanCog has carried out multiple trials evaluating the effectiveness of nutritional interventions on cognitive ability in both young and aged beagle dogs. CanCog's evaluative protocols are valuable in predicting the efficacy of therapies and diets in both dogs and humans. These techniques have been instrumental in the development of a nutritive therapy for treatment of canine cognitive dysfunction, namely Hill's Prescription Diet® Canine b/d®.
Examples of endpoints in nutritional research trials include:
- Food intake, body condition and body weight.
- Long term effects of test diets on cognitive ability.
- Visual function - visual function can be assessed with both behavioral discrimination learning techniques and by recording electroretinograms (ERGs), which measure retinal cell activity.
- Brain structure (using Magnetic Resonance Imaging).