The use of animal models is fundamental to furthering our understanding of human disease mechanisms, as well as identifying potential therapeutic targets. Diseases of ageing often involve multiple body systems; however, multi-systemic features are not fully recapitulated in the many of the animal models available. Therefore, combining pre-clinical models to better reflect the multimorbidities observed at the clinical level is critical. This review will highlight some of the key pre-clinical experimental models associated with cardiovascular (atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease), cerebrovascular (stroke, vascular dementia), metabolic (obesity, type-2 diabetes mellitus) and neurological (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, frontotemporal dementia, Parkinson’s, epilepsy) diseases, and whether these models encompass known multimorbidities. In addition to this, we discuss established pre-clinical models that combine two or more conditions, within the context of dementia.

使用动物模型是进一步了解人类疾病机制以及确定潜在治疗目标的基础。衰老疾病通常涉及多个身体系统；然而，在许多可用的动物模型中并没有完全概括多系统特征。因此，结合临床前模型以更好地反映在临床水平观察到的多种疾病至关重要。本综述将重点介绍与心血管（动脉粥样硬化、冠心病）、脑血管（中风、血管性痴呆）、代谢（肥胖、2 型糖尿病）和神经系统（肌萎缩侧索硬化、额颞叶痴呆、帕金森病、癫痫）疾病，以及这些模型是否包含已知的多种疾病。