For Pat Schultz, this research started at home. She enrolled her German shepherd-poodle mix, Murphy, in the Dog Aging Project while her husband was suffering from Alzheimer’s, and the project her dog joined aimed to advance research into both canine and human aging.

Murphy, now 12, is one of more than 50,000 dogs in the project. Scientists around the country collect data on dogs’ diets and exercise, analyze blood samples and do MRIs of dogs’ brains. Dogs develop many of the same aging-related diseases as humans, and because they age more rapidly, researchers can gather answers faster, according to veterinary neurologist Stephanie McGrath.

“We can get a ton of information that would take decades to do in humans,” McGrath said to CBS News.

Biologist Matt Kaeberlein, who has spent decades trying to understand and reverse the causes of aging in both humans and dogs, co-founded the Dog Aging Project in 2014.

“I realized, ‘Oh my God, we know about three or four or five ways to slow aging in laboratory animals. Some of those are going to work in dogs,'” Kaeberlein said to CBS News.

Kaeberlein said much of the biology of aging is similar across the animal kingdom, particularly across species of mammals. Researchers see dogs as a possible bridge between mice and people. Many treatment trials move from tests on mice directly to human trials, but the latest data shows many drugs that work on mice do not work on people. Dogs live alongside humans and are exposed to the same environments. They exercise with people, drink the same water and even eat human food.

All the information collected in the Dog Aging Project goes into a public database that researchers around the world can access. The database has already been used in more than 50 scientific studies. Many of those studies found correlations between lifestyle, environment and disease risk.

The project has found that dogs living with other dogs appear to suffer from fewer diseases. It also found that dogs that do not exercise have a six times greater chance of developing dementia.

As part of the project, dogs go through tests that measure physical and mental fitness. In one test, dogs are shown where a treat is hidden. Seconds later, they are allowed to go get it, if they can remember where it is. Murphy has gone through testing for the past three years. During one test, he showed signs of anxiety, which McGrath said is a possible sign of dementia.

The project also studies what happens in dogs’ brains. When some of the dogs in the project die, their brains are donated and examined. Dr. Dirk Keene, a neuropathologist who has studied human brains for 20 years looking for causes of Alzheimer’s, works with the veterinarians and researchers in the Dog Aging Project.

Keene said his interest in the work was personal. He watched his mother suffer from Alzheimer’s and also saw his dog Spring decline from what looked to him like the same disease, sometimes called “doggy dementia.”

Near the end of her life, Spring would get confused and lost. She would stare into space and lean against things, Keene said, something that happens to people too.

“It’s not just memory when we start to have dementia,” Keene said to CBS News. “Dementia’s a very complex thing that includes confusion, it includes the loss of the ability to remember where you’re supposed to be, sort of spatial references. Very similar to what we’re seeing in dogs, it happens in people.”

Keene said dog brains, like human brains, have a frontal lobe, temporal lobe and occipital lobe. He said they share the same basic shape as the human brain, and dementia changes brain size and structure in very similar ways in both species.

Brains from people and dogs that suffered from dementia weigh less than healthy brains, Keene said. As the disease kills neurons, the brain shrinks and the space in the middle cavity enlarges. In dogs, dementia also results in enlarged spaces and brain shrinkage.

Under a microscope, Spring’s brain, one of the first donated to the Dog Aging Project, showed beta amyloid plaques, which Keene said are a hallmark of Alzheimer’s in people.

The project is also testing ways to help dogs live longer and stay healthier as they age. One focus is rapamycin. In mice, the drug has been shown to slow cognitive decline and increase life expectancy by 60 percent. That has led some longevity researchers and influencers to suggest rapamycin for human use.

Molecular biologist Julie Moreno helped run a pilot study involving 12 dogs, all showing signs of dementia, to see how rapamycin would affect them. One dog, 10-year-old Qbert, received a placebo. Another, 13-year-old Monkey, received rapamycin.

After the dogs died, Moreno studied their brains. She found Monkey’s brain showed fewer microglial cells, which produce inflammation commonly associated with dementia. Two other dogs that received rapamycin have since died, and their brains also showed fewer cells associated with inflammation.

“If it works in a dog, and it’s safe, and it’s helping their cognition, then, maybe, it would help humans,” Moreno said.

The Dog Aging Project is now running a larger clinical trial funded in part by the National Institutes of Health. Hundreds of dogs, including Murphy, are being given either a placebo or rapamycin to test if the drug can extend life.

Outside the project, biotech startup Loyal is also testing aging drugs for dogs. The for-profit company was founded in 2019 by Celine Haliou and is testing three drugs.

“My vision is that this is, you know, it’s a daily beef-flavored pill that are given preventatively to keep them healthier longer, similar to a statin, you know, for older Americans,” Haliou said.

Haliou said her hope is an estimated “one healthier year of life.”

One of Loyal’s drugs is in a clinical trial involving dogs older than 10, who are monitored for signs of aging. The Food and Drug Administration has signed off on the drug’s safety data and says it has a “Reasonable Expectation of Effectiveness,” but final trial results will not be known for several years.

Haliou said the aging drug is not something to give a dog on its deathbed. Loyal has raised more than $250 million to bring its drugs to market. Haliou said that if the company succeeds with dogs, it may open the possibility of work on human longevity.

“I think going dogs first is the fastest way to work on and understand the biology of human aging,” she said.