" Mind - control parasite " might sound like the baddie from a consecutive - to - TV horror movie , but that ’s a fairly exact description ofToxoplasma gondii .
The individual - celled being is thought to be one of the most common parasites in the worldly concern , infecting up to40 millionpeople in the US , allot to theCDC . While most infections are believed to be symptomless – andsome researchargues its effect are overstated – it has been linked to a wide variety of behavior changes in man and other brute , include increasedsuicide rates , schizophrenia , andrisk - take behaviour .
The parasite alsoinfects most species of tender - full-blood animals . In mice , for good example , the parasitical infection is well known to get a reduced fear of predators , such as computerized tomography . Ifthe black eye is less scared , they ’re more likely to get eaten and terminate up in the intestine of domestic cat-o'-nine-tails , where the coinage tend to reproduce .
But how can a microscopic organism have such a seemingly brawny grip on the brain ?
" Even though a lot of neuroscientist studyToxoplasmainfection as a manakin for immune response in the genius , we need to sympathize what this leech does to rewire the nous , leading to these dramatic shifts in behavior,“Michael Fox , study author and prof at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute , said in astatement .
Reporting in the journalGLIA , the neuroscientist detail how the leech sparks a meaning passing of inhibitory signaling in the brainpower . This is effectively like pass a city ’s route system with some broken dealings lights .
Previous researchhas shown thatToxoplasmainfections can change the level of a key enzyme in repressive neuron needed to bring forth their neurotransmitters . Off the back of that research , this recent study of the brains of mouse infect withT. gondiinoted a red of repressing perisomatic synapses in the neocortex and hippocampus , as well as observing that the cellular telephone physical structure of neurons had become ensheathed by other nous cell , preventing their power to point to each other .
Since the subject area was extend out in mice , it ’s ill-defined how these finding might practice to human brains . Nevertheless , the observations look to line up with what we acknowledge about the leechlike infection and psychiatric disorderliness .
" In neuropsychiatric disorders , similar patterns of repressing synapse loss have been reported , therefore these effect could explain why some the great unwashed develop these disorders C. W. Post - infection , " added Fox .
