Bone marrow transplants cure mental illness – in mice
Scientists in the US claim to have used a bone marrow transplant to cure mental illness in a study that could have profound implications for patients with psychiatric problems.
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Bone marrow transplants are routinely used to treat leukaemia and other life-threatening diseases, but have never been used to treat mental health problems.
The team, led by a Nobel prizewinning geneticist, found that experimental transplants in mice cured them of a disorder in which they groom themselves so excessively they develop bare patches of skin. The condition is similar to a disorder in which people pull their hair out, called trichotillomania.
"A lot of people are going to find it amazing," said Mario Capecchi at the University of Utah, who won the Nobel prize for medicine in 2007 for his work on mouse genetics.
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The team said their work is the first to reveal a direct link between a psychiatric disorder and faulty immune cells, which grow in bone marrow before moving to the brain to protect nerve cells from damage.
Capecchi said the condition the animals develop is comparable to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and could shed fresh light on the roots of the disorder. Other illnesses including depression, schizophrenia and autism might also be linked to problems with the immune system, he added.
"The recognition that many neuropsychiatric diseases have a direct connection to the immune system emphasises that we should be taking immune deficiencies associated with neuropsychiatric disease much more seriously," Capecchi told the Guardian "We know a lot more about the immune system and how to treat immune deficiencies than we know about how our brain works and what the drugs used to treat neuropsychiatric disorders are doing, " he added.
The cost and health risks associated with bone marrow transplants are such that they would never be used to treat mental health problems in people, but the findings will inspire research into immune-based therapies for psychiatric disorders, according to scientists who were not involved with the work.
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