PopSci: “Modern science shows animals and humans may experience fear-based anxiety in similar ways…University of Pennsylvania associate professor and veterinarian Carlo Siracusa emphatically told Popular Science animals “absolutely” can experience mental illnesses. Siracusa regularly works with clients who have dogs and cats that exhibit signs of aggression or destructive behavior which he says is a byproduct of distress or fear. This manifests itself similar to fear-based anxiety seen in humans. In fact, Siracusa says, similar regions that regulate emotions in the human brain are also at work in animals exhibiting signs of anxiety. Though the brains of humans and animals differ in size and complexity, emotional processing in both cases takes place in the amygdala. Like humans, dogs who have been neglected or who have had some other major disruptive change to their environment can show impulsive aggression. Pets, also like humans, can form compulsive behaviors…”