Too clean. Both mice lack the gene Hoxb8, but the animal on the right has received bone marrow from a healthy mouse, curbing its tendency to groom compulsively.
Credit: Shau-Kwaun Chen/University of Utah School of Medicine
Posted on 05/28/2010 8:31:24 PM PDT by neverdem
Some people just can't help themselves. They wash their hands over and over, scrubbing their skin raw. Or they lock and relock doors, pull out their own hair, or obsessively rearrange the contents of their closet. Now, a study of mice suggests that faulty immune cells prompt such compulsive behaviors. The results raise the possibility of treating obsessive-compulsive disorder by targeting the immune system rather than the brain.
Mice are fastidious, regularly cleansing their bodies from nose to tail. But animals with a defective version of the gene Hoxb8 groom themselves so much that they tear out patches of fur and develop skin sores. The behavior resembles a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder called trichotillomania, in which people tug out their own hair.
The Hox family of genes is best known for helping to organize the embryo's body, but Hoxb8 has several effects. The protein encoded by the gene functions in neural development, so mice lacking it have abnormal spinal cords and sensory ability, including pain sensitivity. This defect could in theory provoke the rodents to wash excessively, although molecular geneticist Mario Capecchi of the University of Utah School of Medicine in Salt Lake City and colleagues note that Hoxb8-lacking mice also obsessively groom other mice. That suggests that overcleaning is not a sensory problem but a behavioral one originating in the brain.
When Capecchi and colleagues began looking for the Hoxb8-making cells in the mouse brain, they expected to find that the source was neurons that control grooming. To their surprise, the only cells producing Hoxb8 were microglia, immune cells that guard against pathogens. Although some microglia start out in the brain, others are born in the bone marrow and move in. Overall, adult mice with faulty Hoxb8 harbored about 15% fewer microglia in the brain than normal.
To test whether defective microglia provoke mice to feats of extreme cleanliness, the researchers performed bone marrow transplants. Transferring marrow from Hoxb8-lacking mice into healthy rodents provoked compulsive grooming, the researchers report in the 28 May issue of Cell. And when mice deficient in Hoxb8 received marrow from healthy animals, they cut back on their ablutions. Before this finding, "nobody would say you can cure a [pathological] behavior with a bone marrow transplant," Capecchi says.
The sensory disruptions resulting from a lack of Hoxb8 don't trigger abnormal grooming, the team concludes. When the researchers deleted Hoxb8 only from spinal cord cells, the animals displayed reduced sensitivity to pain, but they didn't clean themselves to excess. By contrast, when the team removed Hoxb8 only from the blood-making cells that spawn microglia, the mice washed too much. Previous studies have implied a link between the immune system and obsessive-compulsive disorder and other neuropsychiatric conditions, Capecchi says. "Here, we say there is a direct connection."
Now, the researchers are testing trichotillomania patients to determine whether they carry mutations in the Hoxb8 gene.
"This is important work," says developmental biologist Jacqueline Deschamps of the Hubrecht Institute in Utrecht, the Netherlands. "The localization of a bone marrow origin of such a behavioral disturbance is a landmark." To determine whether the results apply to humans, researchers should check for microglia in dissected brains from patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder, says neuroscientist Aye Mu Myint of Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany.
Still, Capecchi says that even if the microglia link holds in humans, expensive and risky bone marrow transplants are a poor alternative for current obsessive-compulsive disorder treatments, which include behavioral therapy and drugs such as fluoxetine (Prozac). Developing drugs to alter microglia activity could be a better option.
I don’t believe in OCD, I don’t believe in OCD, I don’t believe in OCD, I don’t believe in OCD, I don’t believe in OCD, I don’t believe in OCD, I don’t believe in OCD
DUH!...HELP!!!!!!!!!
lost grant...send more money!
There is also a link between OCD and strep infection.
One of our cats is an obsessive groomer. She started to lick her belly bare when we went on vacation 3 years ago, and she never stopped. The vet suggested antihistamines in case it was an allergy, but they didn’t help. Next he thought Prozac would help, but we just had a zombie who licked herself too much. We gave up on trying to fix her problem, since it wasn’t making her sick and she didn’t seem to be upset. She looks like a plucked chicken, but we still love her.
I’ve got OCD but never really had strep. For me, it’s a control issue when I get stressed. A super clean house isn’t a bad side effect. lol But when the stress level drops, the house goes back to normal. :D Clean but slight clutter.
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Me neither, me neither, licks lips, me neither, me neither, licks lips, me neither, me neither, licks lips...etc etc etc....
Have you thought to try hot pepper sauce on the area?
Do cats, known for being fastidious themselves, prefer the clean mice over the ordinary ones?
Cheers!
Quit saying “OCD”!!!
It’s “CDO”, because the letters have to be in alphabetical order!!!!!!!!!!
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