News

A Rutgers-led international collaboration has identified 36 genes that substantially raise the risk for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and chronic tic disorders – providing what two researchers said is the most detailed biological understanding of how these conditions develop – and how they might eventually be treated.

Before this study, published in Nature Neuroscience, scientists had found a few genetic clues, each linked separately to OCD or chronic tic disorders. 

Gary Heiman, a professor in the Department of Genetics in the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences and a senior coauthor of the study, said the research “dramatically expands the catalog of shared risk genes, reveals biological connections with autism and schizophrenia and highlights the brain circuits that govern impulse control, movement, and habit formation.”  Read the full announcement via link below.