Researchers have discovered a gene that may be responsible for a rare form of epilepsy in dogs.While numerous genes associated with human epilepsy have already been found, this is the first gene associated with canine epilepsy to be discovered. “Five to 10 percent of dogs have epilepsy compared to about 1 percent of humans,” said one of the study’s authors, Dr. Berge Minassian, a neurologist and scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada. “We’ve found the first dog epilepsy gene and may have explained part of the reason for the high numbers of epilepsy in dogs,” he said. Results of the study appear in the Jan. 7 issue of the journal Science.
