[Idiopathic neurologic diseases in dogs and cats in Japan from the viewpoint of animal models of human disease (author's transl)].

This study was intended to demonstrate the neurological characteristics of idiopathic neurologic diseases of dogs and cats as a material for evaluating them as animal models for human diseases. A hundred and nineteen animals selected for this study from among outpatients with various neurological disorders presented to the Veterinary Hospital of University of Tokyo were studied mainly by the neurological examination with assistant methods of electroencephalography and electromyography. Hydrocephalus and vestibular diseases were highest in incidence in dogs, followed in order by encephalitis and epilepsy. Choleiform movements or other abnormal movements such as athetosis and hemiballism that are seen in diseases of the extrapyramidal system of man were not observed in dogs. Cerebellar degenerative disease showed the highest incidence in cats, which is believed to occur by transplacental infection of panleukopenia virus. Intervertebral disk disorders, the most common neurologic disease in the dog, usually occurred in the thoracic, unlike in man, and lumbar segments, not only causing pain but precipitating paresis or paralysis of the legs or of the trunk.