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Scientists Find a Shared Gene in Dogs With Compulsive Behavior



 
 
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  #1  
Old February 6th 10, 01:42 PM posted to rec.pets.dogs.health
Char
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Posts: 771
Default Scientists Find a Shared Gene in Dogs With Compulsive Behavior

January 19, 2010
Scientists Find a Shared Gene in Dogs With Compulsive Behavior
By MARK DERR
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/19/science/19dogs.html

Scientists have linked a gene to compulsive behavior — in dogs.

Researchers studied Doberman pinschers that curled up into balls,
sucking their flanks for hours at a time, and found that the afflicted
dogs shared a gene. They describe their findings — the first such gene
identified in dogs — in a short report this month in Molecular Psychiatry.

Dr. Nicholas Dodman, director of the animal behavior clinic at the
Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, in North
Grafton, Mass., and the lead author of the report, said the findings had
broad implications for compulsive disorders in people and animals.

Estimates have obsessive-compulsive disorder afflicting anywhere from
2.5 percent to 8 percent of the human population. It shows up in
behavior like excessive hand washing, repetitive checking of stoves,
locks and lights, and damaging actions like pulling one’s hair out by
the roots and self-mutilation.

The disorder has been used in popular movies and television shows to
define characters like the reclusive writer Melvin Udall, played by Jack
Nicholson, in “As Good as It Gets” and Adrian Monk, played by Tony
Shalhoub, in the television series “Monk.”

Similar disorders are known in dogs, particularly in certain breeds,
including Dobermans.

Dr. Dodman and his collaborators searched for a genetic source for this
behavior by scanning and comparing the genomes of 94 Doberman pinschers
that sucked their flanks, sucked on blankets or engaged in both
behaviors with those of 73 Dobermans that did neither. They also studied
the pedigrees of all the dogs for complex patterns of inheritance. The
researchers identified a spot on canine chromosome 7 that contains the
gene CDH2 (Cadherin 2), which showed variation in the genetic code when
the sucking and nonsucking dogs were compared.

The statistical association led to further investigation to determine
for which protein the gene contained instructions. It did for one of the
proteins called cadherins, which are found throughout the animal kingdom
and are apparently involved in cell alignment, adhesion and signaling.

Cadherins have also been recently associated with autism spectrum
disorder, which includes repetitive and compulsive behaviors, said Dr.
Edward I. Ginns, senior author of the report in Molecular Psychiatry and
director of the Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory at the University of
Massachusetts Medical School.

Dr. Dennis Murphy, a psychiatrist who was not associated with the study,
said the results had the potential to advance understanding of
obsessive-compulsive disorder. Dr. Murphy, also chief of the Laboratory
of Clinical Science in the National Institutes of Mental Health’s
Division of Intramural Research Program, is now working on finding and
sequencing the CDH2 gene in humans to see whether it is linked to
obsessive-compulsive behavior.

People with obsessive-compulsive disorder often engage in normal
behavior that has become extreme, ritualized, repetitive and
time-consuming, and suffer from anxiety and obsessive thinking.

Because the disorder involves obsessive thoughts and because of the
difficulty of understanding animal cognition, the same kinds of behavior
in animals has commonly been referred to simply as compulsive disorder.

As scientists learn more about the underlying molecular causes of this
condition, they increasingly use “obsessive-compulsive disorder” to
apply to animals and people.

Recent rough estimates by Dr. Karen L. Overall, a veterinarian
specializing in animal behavior at the University of Pennsylvania School
of Medicine, suggest that up to 8 percent of dogs in America — five
million to six million animals — exhibit compulsive behaviors, like
fence-running, pacing, spinning, tail-chasing, snapping at imaginary
flies, licking, chewing, barking and staring. Males with the problem
outnumber females three to one in dogs, she found, whereas in cats the
ratio is reversed.

Dr. Overall said dogs usually developed compulsive behavior between ages
1 and 4. Some of the Dobermans in Dr. Dodman’s group began earlier, with
blanket sucking at around 5 months and flank sucking at 9 months.

Dogs can be treated, but if they are not, compulsive behavior is one of
the main reasons that people give them up for adoption or euthanasia,
according to veterinary behaviorists.

Dr. Overall said in an earlier paper that environmental causes might
outweigh genetic factors in development of compulsive behaviors in some
cases.

She said the practice of “hanging” a dog up by its choke collar, a form
of discipline advocated by some trainers, produced compulsive behaviors.
Dogs from puppy mills or shelters, rescue dogs and those that are
confined and bored dogs or anxious also seem prone to compulsive
behavior, she said.

Other domestic animals, notably cats and horses, as well as some of the
animals at zoos, exhibit compulsive behaviors, including wool-sucking in
Siamese cats, and locomotion disorders like stall walking and weaving in
confined horses and pacing in captive polar bears, tigers and other
carnivores used to ranging across large territories.

Although antidepressants, particularly selective serotonin reuptake
inhibitors and clomipramine, a tricyclic antidepressant, and behavior
modification have proved effective at controlling compulsive behavior in
dogs and people, they do not appear to correct underlying pathologies or
causes, Dr. Ginns said. Those causes are likely to be as varied as the
compulsive behaviors and as complex as the interplay of multiple genes
and the environment.

“Stress and anxiety, as well as physical trauma and illness, can trigger
repetitive behavior that then takes on a life of its own,” Dr. Ginns said.

But he believes that in many cases there is an underlying genetic
predisposition that responds to environmental stimuli in such a way that
once-normal behavior turns into something pathological. Those genetic
dispositions may differ markedly between different behaviors.

Some geneticists say that because of their detailed pedigree and the
similarity of their genes to those of humans, dogs make an ideal model
for studying human behaviors and pathologies, especially those involving
complex patterns of inheritance. Few humans keep detailed genealogies
for themselves, but they are diligent in recording every detail in the
ancestry of their purebred animals.

“Nick and I share an interest in pedigrees,” Dr. Ginns said in
explaining how he and Dr. Dodman became collaborators with Kerstin
Lindblad-Toh and her gene sequencers at the Broad Institute of M.I.T.
and Harvard, the same group that sequenced the dog genome now proving so
valuable to both human and canine geneticists.
  #2  
Old February 10th 10, 02:11 AM posted to rec.pets.dogs.health
Char
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Posts: 771
Default Scientists Find a Shared Gene in Dogs With Compulsive Behavior

Char wrote:

Dr. Overall said dogs usually developed compulsive behavior between ages
1 and 4. Some of the Dobermans in Dr. Dodman’s group began earlier, with
blanket sucking at around 5 months and flank sucking at 9 months.


I don't think it is coincidence that these behaviors start right when
dogs are getting second and third series of rabies vaccinations. I don't
know why vets push shots over and over when there is no indication that
there is a lack of protection from past shots and from natural immunity.
It is a given that repeated vaccinations cause auto immune diseases and
worse.

Char
 




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