Cat Poop Mind Control
What’s the Deal With Toxoplasmosis?
Have you ever heard that pregnant women should avoid cats? Have you ever wondered why? Have you ever heard of toxoplasmosis?
Toxoplasmosis is quite a crazy parasite. It can be found in cat poo and if ingested by rodents actually makes them attracted to the smell of cat urine. This parasite is so tricky that it’s actually found a way to make mice get eaten by cats just so it can continue its life cycle and go on to breed again in the cat’s stomach.
Want to know something really cray? I know you do! Toxoplasmosis can affect humans as well, in fact, its found in most humans all over the globe!
The hot hypothesis is that toxoplasmosis can actually change human instincts to make men more aggressive, and women more loving and passive. Get out of my head you pacifying parasite!
To understand more about these studies, and their effects on cats and humans alike lets first learn a little more about the bug itself.
What the Heck is Toxoplasmosis?
Toxoplasmosis is caused by a single-celled parasite called Toxoplasma Gondii, and it can be found infecting most warm-blooded animals. (Technically it’s a protozoal species of an obligate intracellular parasite which basically means that this type of parasite can only reproduce inside its host.)
Toxoplasmosis has one definitive host, cats. This means that the parasite wants to be in the belly of a cat to breed and spread its evil mind control around to the rest of the world. Though spreading to and from cats, (and by a cat, I mean any member of the cat family) is the parasite’s M.O., it can be found in all sorts of different places.
Intermediate hosts, i.e. not a cat, include everyone else! An infected intermediate host can spread toxo to anything that eats it or even its offspring. In fact, toxoplasmosis is so non-discerning that it has infected just about everyone… in the world!
Now before you go freaking out, though most of us are probably already toxo-positive, just know that in most cases toxoplasmosis presents no symptoms or outright danger to people it infects. Symptoms really only present themselves in the very old, very young, very ill, or very pregnant.
Once infected, a host will test toxo-positive forever. Which in most cases isn’t really a bad thing. Actually, if you’re pregnant and you’re super worried about getting rid of the cat, go ahead and get tested. If you’re positive, then there’s no need to worry at all.
Now I know what you’re thinking, “this girl just totally said she was going to tell me about mind control, then just told me I’m infected with a cat poo disease, she’s full of it and by it, I mean cat poo!” Well, two of those things are true, probably. But I promise I’m getting to the weirdness.
How Toxoplasmosis is Spread
Toxoplasmosis is spread by reproducing something called oocysts. These little microscopic gems are how the parasite is then spread from host to host.
So, in toxo’s ideal world, it goes a little something like this:
In all other subjects, including humans, an infection can come as a result of eating unwashed fruit and veggies, eating raw or undercooked meats, and just having poor hygiene in general. Oocysts never occur in human poo.
In most cases, once ingested, the infection will spread and quickly be fought off by the body’s immune system. Once the toxo has lost the fight, the oocysts become tiny internal cysts throughout the body and brain. Though forever positive for toxo, the body is healed. This goes for cats and humans. Again, neither the cat nor the human is likely to show any symptoms of this unless already really sick.
And yes, while it sucks to hear that we might have this weird parasite living dormant in our bods, the good news is that much like the chickenpox, once we have been infected, we are resistant to becoming infected again.
Again, the only way to even know if you have this is to get a blood test, but most doctors won’t even think to check you for this so you gotta ask if you really want to know. Like maybe if you’re prego. A test can also tell you if you were infected recently or not.
One of the key things to remember here in not freaking out is that oocysts need to be exposed to the air for four days to become infectious, so clean your cat box and your chillin. Also, the cat’s not really to blame, so wash your hands, wash your veggies, and cook your food, you’ll be fine!
Ok, on to the good stuff!
Mind Control
Here’s the part that makes toxoplasmosis absolutely crazy, it can actually alter perceptions in the mind aka mind control!!!
Latent (or dormant) toxoplasmosis in mice actually affects the way they act. An infected mouse is actually attracted to the smell of cat pee. Sexually attracted it seems. This is appropriately called “fatal attraction” and has been found in study after study of infected mice. Oddly enough, it’s only cat pee. Mice still seem adverse to other types of predator urine (i.e wolf and other things that eat mice) but they are way into that kitty funk.
It seems the primary effect of this fatal attraction is that mice, no longer fearing the sent of the predator is apt to hang around waiting for it. Some studies have even shown that toxo slows down the mouse’s overall speed making them easier to catch.
So basically this parasite is getting into the little mouse brain and effecting its fear centers. Once the mouse is no longer afraid, it’s way more likely to be eaten thus completing the lifecycle of the parasite.
Effects on Humans
Human brains are way different than mouse brains, obvi, so that makes it a little more difficult to see how it is affecting us.
Studies have shown that a higher percentage of humans testing positive for toxo are involved in traffic accidents and have slower reflexes on average. It has also been found that toxo-positive men are more aggressive, jealous and suspicious, while toxo-positive women are more kind-hearted and forgiving. Both genders seem to show a decrease in fear.
Here’s the kicker, there is a greater population of schizophrenics testing positive for toxoplasmosis then not. In fact, some scientists believe that while toxo doesn’t lead to schizophrenia, it might be a contributing factor for those who are already predisposed to the illness. In fact, in these cases, it nearly triples the odds! There is a call for more testing with anti-parasitic drugs in these cases of toxo-positive schizophrenics to see if it might relieve some of their symptoms, but not much testing has been done in this case.
Toxoplasmosis has been found in cases of plenty of other brain-related illnesses such as epilepsy, neurodegenerative conditions, and even bipolar disorder, and memory impairment in the elderly. Whether these illnesses are in any way related to toxo is still very hard to gauge, but it’s thought that it may be caused by a persistent low level of inflammation in the brain.
Facts Tho…
It’s really hard to tell if these illnesses or the other attributes I mentioned above are directly related to toxoplasmosis at all. While there is a higher percentage of people with these conditions and behaviors affected by the parasite, it’s hard to tell in humans just which came first.
Toxoplasmosis doesn’t have a large enough effect to show any direct correlation. In other words, it’s too hard to tell if these people act the way they do and have the conditions they have because of toxoplasmosis, or they already exhibited those behaviors and had those conditions and also have toxoplasmosis. It’s really kind of a chicken or the egg situation at this point.
The US National Library of Medicine says toxoplasmosis is “perhaps one of the most convincing examples of a manipulative parasite of vertebrates.” Another example of a manipulative parasite is rabies, where the infected animal is driven by the parasite to bite another animal to spread the infection. Or, even weirder, the zombie ant brain fungus , but that’s a story for another day.
The Final Word in Cat Poop Mind Control
In the end, as scary as all of this sounds, keep in mind that most healthy individuals will fight off this parasite causing it to lay dormant. In other words, your bod’s got you covered.
All in all, we can sit here and ask ourselves this, “does toxoplasmosis affect human brains?” and unfortunately the answer is maybe, but also nobody really knows.
The best thing that we can all do for now is to take preventative measures to avoid toxoplasmosis. Luckily for us, that really means doing things most of us are already doing. Like I said before, wash your hands and veggies, and try to avoid raw and undercooked meats.
If you follow a few simple steps to ensure good hygiene, then you too can keep cat poo from controlling your mind!
My name is Keir Dottie Bashmakov, and I am not a scientist. If you found anything in this article to be wildly untrue, please let me know in the comments, I would love to be corrected! I’m just a simple nerd, out here hoping we can learn weird things together!
If you’d like to @ me, you can do so on twitter @dottievision
Originally published at https://dottievision.com.
