Cross-species Models of Obsessive-compulsive Spectrum Disorders

Advances in our understanding of the genetic and neural substrates of obsessivecompulsive disorder (OCD) and related spectrum disorders such as trichotillomania, as well as their characteristic behavioral and cognitive symptoms, render the search and evaluation of appropriate animal models especially timely. Such modeling in neurology and neuropsychiatry generally occurs on at least two levels: the etiological, in terms of genetics and molecular pathology, and the symptomatic, in terms of identifying suitable neurocognitive endophenotypes that encompass the range of behavioral and psychiatric manifestations of particular disorders in the