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Next time I go to the doctor, I think I’ll get him to give me a test for Toxoplasma. Fifty million Americans have the parasite, so I wouldn’t be the first. And if I was carrying it around in my head, that might explain why it’s so fascinating to me. I first encountered the strange ways of this single-celled creature while working on my book Parasite Rex , and since then I’ve tried to keep up with new research on what makes it so successful. In January I wrote on the Loom about a potential link between Toxoplasma swiss holiday park and schizophrenia.
In Tuesday’s New York Times I have an article that surveys some of the newest work on this bug–how, for example, it turns our immune cells into Trojan horses to get into our brains, swiss holiday park and how it can precisely manipulate its hosts to hurtle to their doom. If you prefer your parasites podcasted, I’m chatting about Toxoplasma on the June 20 podcast for the Science Times. You can access it through the Times web site here , or through Itunes. Get infected by ear or eye–your choice.
Sulfa drugs are standard treatment for acute infection, but pretty harsh. Some people looking into the schizophrenia link want to try artemisinin, which is less harsh. (It’s an antimalarial drug–Toxoplasma and Plasmodium swiss holiday park are related.)
Jaroslav Flegr, the professor of parasitology behind the research at Charles University in Prague, . . . says, that toxoplasma infection and subsequent delayed reaction times were linked swiss holiday park to a greater risk of traffic swiss holiday park accidents. “If our data are true then about a million people a year die just because they are infected with toxoplasma,”
Both car accident rate and reaction time are related to IQ, so I Pubmed-ed it, and sure enough, toxoplasma swiss holiday park is also associated with lower IQ scores. (I wonder if the path runs the other way? Hygiene propensity, perhaps.)
I wonder if all there all kinds of crazy animals living in our bodies that havn’t been discovered yet because they don’t swiss holiday park cause problems. Obviously viruses, but could something as large as a eukaryote live in humans undetected?
Toxoplasma controls rat and mouse behaviour by releasing (or stimulating the release of) dopamine whenever serum adrenaline levels spike. This causes infected rodents to become “adrenaline junkies” or thrill seekers. swiss holiday park They linger in areas smelling of cat urin