Animal Models of Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder: From Bench to Bedside via Endophenotypes and Biomarkers

This chapter focuses on animal models of Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder (OCD). It briefly summarizes the clinical phenomenology and psychobiology of OCD, focusing in particular on the question of whether understanding the heterogeneity of OCD or its underlying endophenotypes may be useful for future research on this disorder. Animal models of OCD can be divided into three classes, behavioral, pharmacological, and genetic, according to the method used to induce compulsive behavior in the model. The chapter focuses only on animal models that seem most relevant to the development of new approaches for the treatment of OCD and discusses only laboratory models whose predictive validity has been assessed and that have some construct validity. It also reviews existing animal models of OCD, discussing recent work in this area in terms of the face, construct, and predictive validity of models, provides a current perspective from the pharmaceutical industry, focusing on selected targets and how the use of neurocognitive testing can perhaps facilitate the development of novel drugs for these targets. The chapter concludes that a better understanding of OCD spectrums and subtypes, their mediating circuitry, and the relevant genes and proteins in these circuits, will help bring about new pharmacotherapies for this disorder. Although there has been considerable progress in understanding the psychobiology of OCD and in developing medications for this disorder, much remains to be done.