An Animal Model of Tourette's Syndrome

• Published in: The American journal of psychiatry Vol. 159; no. 4; pp. 657 - 660
• Main Authors: Taylor, Jane R., Morshed, Syed A., Parveen, Salina, Mercadante, Marcos T., Scahill, Lawrence, Peterson, Bradley S., King, Robert A., Leckman, James F., Lombroso, Paul J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Psychiatric Publishing 01.04.2002; American Psychiatric Association
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Animals; Antibodies, Antinuclear - blood; Antibodies, Antinuclear - toxicity; Autoantibodies - blood; Autoantibodies - toxicity; Biological and medical sciences; Brain Mapping; Child; Corpus Striatum - immunology; Degenerative and inherited degenerative diseases of the nervous system. Leukodystrophies. Prion diseases; Disease Models, Animal; Female; Humans; Immunity (Disease); Injections; Male; Medical sciences; Neurological disorders; Neurology; Organic mental disorders. Neuropsychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Rats; Rats, Sprague-Dawley; Stereotyped Behavior - drug effects; Stereotyped Behavior - physiology; Tourette Syndrome - immunology; Autoimmunity; Animal model; Rat; Central nervous system; Infusion; Etiology; Gilles de la Tourette syndrome; Degenerative disease; Child; Human; Nervous system diseases; Rodentia; Autoantibody; Oral form; Corpus striatum; Cerebral disorder; Vertebrata; Ventrolateral nucleus; Mammalia; School age; Animal; Central nervous system disease; Adolescent; Young adult; Stereotypy; Comparative study; Brain (vertebrata)
• ISSN: 0002-953X; 1535-7228
• DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.159.4.657

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.