about compulsive behavior. This group of mice didn't just lick themselves clean, as normal creatures do, but licked and bit themselves so continuously and vigorously that they became bald and even developed open wounds. Joy Greer, a graduate student in Mario Capecchi's lab at the University of Utah, reported that the mice had body hair trapped between their teeth and gums suggesting they had torn it off. continued...

Illustration: Daniel Fazer

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Reprinted from the HHMI Bulletin,
June 2002, page 36.
©2002 Howard Hughes Medical Institute