Science Daily on March 23rd, 2012 published an article on the results of a study from PLoS One that indicated the discovery of a new epilepsy gene in dogs. This finding was done by Professor Hannes Lohi from the University of Helenski and his research team. The professor believes that this finding will not only help with epilepsy in dogs, but also with new understandings into human epilepsy. This discovery has the following implications:
Due to the discovery of this new epilepsy gene on the 37th chromosome of canines, researchers believe it may be possible for other epilepsy genes to exist on other chromosomes of humans also
Researchers are also looking into identifying the properties of this gene to see if genes in the human genome are similar to identify epilepsy cases sooner
Lesson of the article: the discovery of this new gene in canines has opened a new road to epilepsy research