Creating and stopping OCD in mice

Duke University researchers have genetically engineered mice that exhibit symptoms similar to those associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and then successfully reversed the behaviors using antidepressants and gene therapy. At first, the study had nothing to do with OCD. The scientists had switched off a particular gene, Sapap3, involved in neuronal communication to better understand its mechanism. To their surprise, the rodents began to exhibit signs of anxiety and compulsively groomed themselves to the point of injury. Like many humans with OCD, the mice's symptoms subsided after treatment with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, in this case Prozac. Next, the researchers injected baby mice from the same engineered breed with a trigger to switch the Sapap3 gene back on. That therapy prevented those mice from developing the OCD-like symptoms. The scientists published their research in this week's issue of the journal Nature. From News@Nature:

"What's most exciting for us is that you can put this gene back in a very small area and rescue the normal behaviour," (lead author Guoping) Feng says...

Feng admits that it is hard, if not impossible, to come up with a perfect animal model for a human psychiatric condition, as no one knows what the animals are thinking. But the team still hopes that studying these mice can help develop better drugs for treating OCD in humans.

Feng's team is now studying human families where OCD is common to see if mutations in the Sapap3 gene are linked to OCD in humans as well as mice. link