If you’ve ever been fortunate enough to have a goofy little pet whose behavior sometimes makes you wonder if they have been afflicted with ADHD just like you, you might be on to something there. A new wave of research suggests that our pets may also be neurodivergent.
Writing in The Conversation, Jacqueline Boyd, Senior Lecturer in Animal Science at Nottingham Trent University, argues that scientists have long known that dogs, cats, rats, mice, and even primates individually have their own distinct personalities. Some may be more naturally energetic, while others are naturally more lethargic. But diagnosing something as nuanced as neurodiversity in animals gets a little tricky since it’s harder to tell why, exactly external stimuli are affecting an animal.
Boyd says genetic and behavioral studies are increasingly painting a picture of animal neurodiversity that looks surprisingly similar to our own. Some dogs show structural gene differences tied to hypersocial behavior; the more impulsive ones have lower serotonin and dopamine levels, which are the same neurotransmitters involved in ADHD in humans.
Then there’s the autism research. In beagles with a mutation in the SHANK3 gene, which has been linked to autism in humans, scientists observed reduced social interest, less brain-to-brain “neural coupling” with people, and weakened attention-related signaling. Neural coupling normally lights up during storytelling or deep eye contact with your dog, so when that signal flatlines, bonding gets tougher.
If you want to get into some morally questionable science, researchers found that a single dose of LSD temporarily improved attention and human-dog neural syncing in SHANK3-mutant dogs. The same pattern appears in mice and humans, though giving psychedelics to dogs is legally and ethically dubious to say the least.
The behavioral issues often associated with autism or ADHD are nearly universal in pets. A huge 2024 survey found that more than 99 percent of dogs displayed at least one behavioral problem. State-of-the-art machine learning tools can accurately identify ADHD-like traits in dogs. There may be a future where a single tool can diagnose neurodivergence in both humans and animals.
Animals, particularly the ones we have around us or share something in common with, could be just as neurodivergent as we are. There may come a time when, as with neurodivergent people, our pets might fare better if we stop expecting all of them to behave the same.
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