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Bone marrow transplant cured compulsive behaviour in mice whose OCD symptom seems to be the result of a mutation in a gene never before linked to behaviour.

Hoxb8 is usually active in microglia, immune-system cells that clean up damaged neurons and attack pathogens in the brain. But it turns out that mice without Hoxb8 groom themselves until their hair falls out.

鈥淚t鈥檚 startling behaviour,鈥� says at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City whose team made the discovery.

Capecchi鈥檚 team also gave the mutant mice a bone marrow transplant, which stopped their OCD. Normal mice who received marrow from the Hoxb8 鈥渒nockouts鈥� groomed themselves compulsively .

Preliminary experiments suggest that humans with trichotillomania 鈥揳n obsessive compulsion to pull out their hair also have mutations in Hoxb8. If proved correct, drugs that modify the immune system may be effective at treating this and other psychiatric conditions that may be associated with mutated microglia, says Capecchi.

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