According to a report, people with obsessive compulsive disorder may be benefitted by a research recently conducted at the University of Utah. Nobel Prize-winning geneticist Mario Capecchi, led the study, which shows the primary cause-and-effect link between immune system cells and mental illness. This study could lead to the development of eventual new psychiatric treatments.

As per the research, the bone marrow transplants cure mutant mice that pull out their hair compulsively, and the findings would correlate to people with similar disorders, because mice share more than 99% of the same genes with humans.

Capecchi shared that there is a direct relationship between a psychiatric disorder and the immune system. He revealed specific cells called microglia derived from bone marrow are found in the brain.

Pathological grooming and hair-pulling in mice is caused by a mutant gene that results in defective microglia. These are immune system cells that start off in bone marrow and travel from blood to the brain. Microglia attacks and engulfs infectious agents, to defend the brain and spinal cord.

Capecchi said, “A lot of people are going to find it amazing. That's the surprise: Bone marrow can correct a behavioral defect”.