Incessant tail chasing, repetitive shadow stalking, relentless paw chewing for hours and hours every day: Dogs can suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder, too. And a new study helps explain why.
Researchers have zeroed in on four genes that are connected to OCD in dogs. If the same genes turn out to be malfunctioning in the human version of the disorder -- and there are clues that they do -- this line of research may eventually help scientists develop better drugs for a human disease that is notoriously difficult to treat.
"This is really exciting because psychiatric diseases tend to be very heritable, but finding genes associated with psychiatric diseases in humans has been really difficult," said Elinor Karlsson, a computational biologist at the Broad Institute at Harvard University.
The antidepressant medications that are currently available for OCD only help about 50 percent of people and dogs that use them, she added, and the medicines can cause unwanted side effects.
"The question is: can we use genetics to pinpoint what the brain pathways are that are going wrong in these diseases? And can we design drugs that target those pathways in ways that are much more specific than we are doing now?"she added. "Anything we can use to pick apart exactly what is going wrong so we can treat these diseases is going to be a huge benefit."
Instead of repetitive hand washing or hoarding, dogs with OCD may chew blankets or chase their tails way more than normal. Owners often say they can't distract their pets from their obsessive tasks.