The hope of an early trajectory-modifying treatment
Oxytocin in Prader-Willi Syndrome
The following teams are driving this innovative therapeutic approach:
• The team at the Rare Diseases Reference Centre for Prader-Willi Syndrome and other rare forms of obesity with eating disorders, led by Professor Maithé Tauber at the Toulouse University Hospital, for clinical studies,
• The research team led by Françoise Muscatelli, Research Director of the CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research) at INSERM’s Institut de Neurobiologie de la Méditerranée (Marseille), Unit 901, for pre-clinical studies.
The link between oxytocin and Prader-Willi syndrome
It has been shown that people with Prader-Willi syndrome have a reduced number of oxytocin-producing neurons in the hypothalamus, leading to oxytocin deficiency, while other hormones and neurohormones are not impaired (Swaab, 1995). These data have been confirmed by PW-like animal models – Necdin (Muscatelli, 2000) and Magel2 (Schaller, 2010) – which showed an alteration in the maturation of the oxytocinergic system from birth.
