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Scientists: Dogs suffer from OCD too!
Highlights
Scientists: Dogs Suffer From OCD Too!.Researchers Said Few Breeds Of Dogs Exhibit Particularly High Rates Of OCD.
Washington: Man's best friend can also suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder, say scientists who have identified four genes that are connected to OCD in dogs. Researchers said few breeds of dogs exhibit particularlyhigh rates of OCD.
These include Doberman Pinschers, bullterriers, Shetland sheepdogs and German shepherds.
OCD is an anxiety disorder characterised by intrusivethoughts that produce uneasiness, apprehension, fear, orworry; by repetitive behaviours aimed at reducing the associated anxiety; or by a combination of such obsessions and compulsions.
Dogs with OCD may display behaviours such as incessanttail chasing, repetitive shadow stalking and relentless pawchewing. Since dogs are genetically simpler than people,researchers turned to these canines in their search forOCD-related genes, 'Discovery News' reported.
Elinor Karlsson, a computational biologist at the BroadInstitute at Harvard University, and colleagues began by sequencing and comparing a large section of the genomes of 90 Dobermans that had OCD with 60 that didn't.
They also searched for genes that looked the same in allof the Dobermans but that differed between that breed and others. When they had zeroed in on several suspicious areas ofthe genome, the researchers compared the suspect Dobermangenes with genes from a sample of the three other breeds thatalso suffer higher-than-usual rates of OCD.
Those analyses pinpointed four genes that have unusually high rates of mutations in dogs with obsessive and compulsive behaviours.
The genes implicated in the new study play roles inpathways that have also been connected to human OCD, Karlssonsaid, suggesting that dogs could provide a helpful modelsystem for developing better treatments for people.
The study was published in the journal Genome Biology.
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