An animal model of Tourette's syndrome

JR Taylor, SA Morshed, S Parveen… - American Journal of …, 2002 - Am Psychiatric Assoc
JR Taylor, SA Morshed, S Parveen, MT Mercadante, L Scahill, BS Peterson, RA King…
American Journal of Psychiatry, 2002Am Psychiatric Assoc
OBJECTIVE: An animal model was used to investigate an autoimmune etiology for some
cases of Tourette's syndrome. METHOD: Sera from 12 patients with Tourette's syndrome
with high levels of antineural or antinuclear antibodies were infused bilaterally into the
ventrolateral striatum of rats. Sera from 12 additional Tourette's syndrome patients and 12
normal subjects (both groups with low levels of autoantibodies) were infused for
comparison. Rates of oral stereotypies were recorded by observers who were blind to the …
OBJECTIVE
An animal model was used to investigate an autoimmune etiology for some cases of Tourette’s syndrome.
METHOD
Sera from 12 patients with Tourette’s syndrome with high levels of antineural or antinuclear antibodies were infused bilaterally into the ventrolateral striatum of rats. Sera from 12 additional Tourette’s syndrome patients and 12 normal subjects (both groups with low levels of autoantibodies) were infused for comparison. Rates of oral stereotypies were recorded by observers who were blind to the origin of the infused sera.
RESULTS
Oral stereotypies significantly increased in the rats infused with sera from the patients with high levels of autoantibodies.
CONCLUSIONS
The results are consistent with an autoimmune etiology in a subset of cases of Tourette’s syndrome.
American Journal of Psychiatry