Vets baffled by deadly disease that turns pet cats into ‘robots’

A DISEASE that has turned more than 20 cats in Scotland “robotic” has left veterinary experts mystified.

Afflicted animals initially become overly affectionate. Then their movement stiffens and they become increasingly disorientated. They walk with rigid legs and a stiff, extended tail.

The stricken felines have been dubbed robotic cats due to their strange movements.

Two surgeries in the Highlands, Strathbogie Veterinary Centre, Huntly, and Morven Veterinary Practice, Alford, recorded 21 cases between 2001 and 2010.

The disease is progressive and incurable and eventually all the cats had to be put down. Mark Leggett from Morven Veterinary Practice, who saw some of the cases, said: “The most striking thing was that they had quite a rigid tail. It didn’t flick out or move about like normal but just stuck out straight.

“They also had a stiff gait, hence the name robotic cats. They didn’t seem to be in pain or suffering but they were often scruffy because they couldn’t groom properly.”

Now cats with a slightly different but possibly related condition have been identified in Sweden and Austria, where the name “staggering disease” has been coined.

Dr Luisa De Risio, head of neurology at the Animal Health Trust, has studied the dead bodies of the Scottish cats.

Writing in the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery, she speculated that the cause of the disease could have been transmitted from wild animals.

She said: “All the cats in our study, and most of the cats with ‘staggering disease’, belong to the rural population accustomed to hunting birds and rodents.”

She added: “We do not yet know why the disease is limited to Scotland. One likely possibility is that the cause of the disorder is present only in the geographic area in which the disease has been recognised in north-east Scotland.”

All the cats seemed to have a slowly progressing neurological disease. When the vets looked at immune system “markers” they found an elevated level of a protein known as interferon- inducible Mx protein.

This is a sign that something, whether an environmental organism or virus, was stimulating the cats’ immune systems.

Further tests showed the disease could be caused by an infection of the central nervous system, called lymphohistiocytic meningoencephalomyelitis.

Dr De Risio added: “This [testing] is a very complex, time-consuming and costly process with no guarantee of a satisfactory result. This is the only way to know if there could be a suitable treatment.”

All the cats were affected late in life, at an average age of nine years old, and the condition progressed slowly, taking about 11 months.

“The late age at onset, the very slow progression of signs, the peculiar clinical signs suggest that the 21 cats included in this study were affected by the same unique, previously unreported condition,” added Dr De Risio.

The findings were presented last week at a small-animal veterinary conference in Birmingham.