Welcome to another edition of Cool Stuff Ride Home. On today's episode, elderly cats with dementia may hold clues for Alzheimer's disease in humans.

Plus, people with ADHD, well, they may have an underappreciated advantage, and it's called hyper curiosity.

Details on the way.

That plus a look at this day in history coming up, it's cool stuff.

And now a story from Science News and author Claudia Lopez Laredo.

As cats age, they may yowl more than usual at night, have trouble sleeping, or sleep too much, and act

generally confused or disoriented. Now, a new study shows that, just like in humans with

Alzheimer's disease, amyloid beta plaques build up in the brains of aging felines and may contribute

to dementia-like behaviors. In cats, that buildup could be causing a cascade of

problems within the brain, such as hyperactivation of immune and other supporting brain cells

that attack the synapses that connect nerve cells. Researchers reported that back on August 11th

in the journal, European Journal of Neuroscience. Aged cats with and without dementia had

similar features and only a small number of cats were studied. But these findings could start

helping researchers better understand how cats age and potentially develop treatments for feline

dementia as well as provide new insights into how the disease progresses in humans.

Earlier studies had found amyloid beta in the brains of cats, but scientists didn't know to what

extent it was disrupting brain function. Robert McGeachin, a veterinarian at the University of

Edenberg, knew that the number of synapses decreased early in Alzheimer's disease in humans.

And so he and his team decided to focus on these connections in their cat study.

They looked at the post-mortem brains of seven young cats and 18 older ones,

including eight with behavioral signs of dementia.

Using fluorescent markers that find and cling to amyloid beta,

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