Pets Love Neuroscience Too! Tabitha Althoff, MBA, R. EEG T., RPSGT, RST

An Overview of Neurophysiologic Monitoring, Treatment, and Research of Pets

Recent advancements in veterinary neurology have demonstrated the increasing utility of electroencephalography (EEG) in diagnosing and managing seizures and other neurological disorders in animals. Non-invasive EEG techniques are particularly promising, offering safe and stress-free approaches to monitor brain activity in companion animals such as dogs and cats.

Here we provide a list of various publications outlining work in the neurophysiologic monitoring, treatment, and research of pets. The findings collectively emphasize the growing role of EEG in veterinary neuroscience, particularly in epilepsy diagnosis, treatment monitoring, and translational research applications. 

• A case report by Brewińska et al. (2025) further underscored the clinical application of EEG in a Tonkinese cat with drug-resistant epilepsy. EEG recordings identified generalized tonic seizures with paroxysmal fast activity, supporting a Tier III diagnosis of idiopathic epilepsy and informing a successful trial of phenytoin treatment (Brewińska et al., 2025).
• Hermándy-Berencz et al. (2025) conducted a study utilizing non-invasive polysomnography on epileptic dogs, revealing significant disruptions in sleep architecture. The findings included reduced sleep efficiency and increased nocturnal awakenings, with epileptiform activity detected in select cases, thereby highlighting EEG’s diagnostic relevance in epilepsy (Hermándy-Berencz et al., 2025).
• Complementary research by Everest et al. (2025) addressed the accuracy of scalp electrode placement for canine EEG arrays. Using virtual models based on CT scans, the study demonstrated that skull conformation significantly impacts cortical coverage, with certain brain regions, such as the frontal and olfactory cortices, receiving inadequate coverage in specific skull types (Everest et al., 2025).
• Kulgod et al. (2025) provided a systematic review of 22 studies on non-invasive canine EEG, primarily within behavioral and cognitive research contexts. The review identified critical needs for signal quality improvement, protocol standardization, and broader integration into clinical veterinary neurology (Kulgod et al., 2025).
• Expanding into computational applications, Wang et al. (2025) proposed a cross-species seizure detection framework using EEG data from both dogs and humans. Their machine learning model enhanced detection performance via domain adaptation, illustrating the translational potential of veterinary EEG data in human neurodiagnostics (Wang et al., 2025).