DOCTORS WERE USING FOUR GENES FOR OCD AND TOURETTE'S RESEARCH, IT JUST FOUND 32 MORE.

For years the entire high-confidence gene list for OCD and chronic tic disorders sat at four genes. Four. That was the whole biological understanding of conditions that affect up to 2 percent of the population. A Rutgers-led international team ran whole-exome sequencing on nearly 4,000 people diagnosed with OCD, chronic tic disorders like Tourette's, or both, and came back with 32 ones. These are not nudge-the-odds variants. Researchers estimate the identified genes raise the risk of developing these disorders by about 57-fold on average, and as much as 210-fold at the extreme end. Thirty of the 36 turned up in both OCD and tic disorder cases, which is basically what clinicians have watched happen for decades: the two keep landing in the same people and the same families. Some of the genes also overlap with autism, developmental delay and schizophrenia, and they cluster in the brain circuits running impulse control, movement and habit. The team checked their work against congenital heart disease as a control and found no overlap there, so the signal is real. Senior coauthor Jay Tischfield says the genes act in networks rather than individually, and that pharma went from a couple of targets to more than 30. Drastically raising the possibility of new treatments and cures for these diseases.

Why you should give a shit: Thirty-two new drug targets landed in one paper, which means the next generation might get treatment built on the biology instead of doctors guessing and hoping an SSRI shrugs it off.