Mind Control By Parasites

[Dr Dave]

Now I get it: We're being driven to schizophrenia by parasites.

Mind Control by Parasites

Bill Christensen

Technovelgy.comSat Feb 11, 8:00 AM ET

Half of the world's human population is infected with Toxoplasma, parasites in the body—and the brain. Remember that.

Toxoplasma gondii is a common parasite found in the guts of cats; it sheds eggs that are picked up by rats and other animals that are eaten by cats. Toxoplasma forms cysts in the bodies of the intermediate rat hosts, including in the brain.

Since cats don't want to eat dead, decaying prey, Toxoplasma takes the evolutionarily sound course of being a "good" parasite, leaving the rats perfectly healthy. Or are they?

Oxford scientists discovered that the minds of the infected rats have been subtly altered. In a series of experiments, they demonstrated that healthy rats will prudently avoid areas that have been doused with cat urine. In fact, when scientists test anti-anxiety drugs on rats, they use a whiff of cat urine to induce neurochemical panic.

However, it turns out that Toxoplasma-ridden rats show no such reaction. In fact, some of the infected rats actually seek out the cat urine-marked areas again and again. The parasite alters the mind (and thus the behavior) of the rat for its own benefit.

If the parasite can alter rat behavior, does it have any effect on humans?

Dr. E. Fuller Torrey (Associate Director for Laboratory Research at the Stanley Medical Research Institute) noticed links between Toxoplasma and schizophrenia in human beings, approximately three billion of whom are infected with T. gondii: Toxoplasma infection is associated with damage to astrocytes, glial cells which surround and support neurons. Schizophrenia is also associated with damage to astrocytes. Pregnant women with high levels of antibodies to Toxoplasma are more likely to give birth to children who will develop schizophrenia. Human cells raised in petri dishes, and infected with Toxoplasma, will respond to drugs like haloperidol; the growth of the parasite stops. Haloperidol is an antipsychotic, used to treat schizophrenia. Dr. Torrey got together with the Oxford scientists, to see if anything could be done about those parasite-controlled rats that were driven to hang around cat urine-soaked corners (waiting for cats). According to a recent press release, haloperidol restores the rat's healthy fear of cat urine. In fact, antipsychotic drugs were as effective as pyrimethamine, a drug that specifically eliminates Toxoplasma.

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I knew it. I knew it. We're screwed.

[Doc Martin]

No need to panic, I have been infected three times, and do I seem crazy to you? Well… do I? Huh?....Huh? WOW, did anyone just hear that voice?

A single-celled parasite called Toxoplasma gondii causes a disease known as toxoplasmosis. While the parasite is found throughout the world, more than 60 million people in the United States may be infected with the Toxoplasma parasite. Of those who are infected, very few have symptoms because a healthy person's immune system usually keeps the parasite from causing illness. However, pregnant women and individuals who have compromised immune systems should be cautious; for them, a Toxoplasma infection could cause serious health problems.

You can “catch” Toxoplasma the following ways:

• Accidentally swallowing cat feces from a Toxoplasma-infected cat (Note to steve(thelil): behave) that is shedding the organism in its feces. This might happen if you were , cleaning a cat's litter box, or touching anything that has come into contact with cat.
• Knives, utensils, cutting boards and other foods that have had contact with raw meat.
• Drinking water contaminated with Toxoplasma.
• Also, I would imagine receiving an infected organ transplant or blood transfusion.

Infants born to mothers who became infected with Toxoplasma for the first time during or just before pregnancy. Persons with severely weakened immune systems, such as individuals with HIV/AIDS, those taking certain types of chemotherapy, and those who have recently received an organ transplant are the most likely to develop severe toxoplasmosis.

The good news is: Toxoplasma is easily treated with pyrimethamine plus either trisulfapyrimidines or sulfadiazine. In pregnancy, spiramycin is usually given.

[John L]

I knew that something was wrong when I lost my fear of cat urine last year.

So where can I get a few hits of haloperidol?

[Vince Kargatis]

Speaking of which, check out this wild description of a certain wasp species:
The Wisdom of Parasites

Zombie roaches!

[Doc Martin]

Vince,

As they did in your link, if we use an expanded definition of what parasites are, their diversity grows even greater. Not as salacious as a wasp taking hold of one of the roach's antennae and leading it, like a dog on a leash, but just as fascinating, is how, cuckoos grow up in the nests of other birds, such as reed warblers. We don't typically think of birds as parasites (in my business I think more about parasites on birds), but it's quite a realistic description in the case of the cuckoo. An adult cuckoo lays its eggs in the nest of a reed warbler. When the cuckoo hatches, the fledgling bird proceeds to throw out all the eggs and the fledglings of the host warbler, so that it alone is left in the nest. Amazingly, the reed warbler parents keep on feeding the cuckoo fledgling.

The cuckoo manipulates its host, just as other parasites manipulate their hosts. One of its tactics is to mimic the call of reed warbler fledglings. Interestingly, it doesn't just mimic the call of one fledgling but the sound of a whole nest of reed warbler fledglings. A parent reed warbler hears the sound of all these fledglings and thinks, "I've got to go get a lot of food." It is an innate reflex. It comes back to find this giant gaping mouth, so it throws in the food and goes off to get more. When the cuckoo becomes old enough, it flies off and mates, laying its eggs in other reed warbler nests and repeating the cycle. This relationship is parasitic, and cuckoos are known as brood parasites.

Parasites are not only incredibly diverse; they are also incredibly successful. There are parasitic stretches of DNA in your own genes, some of which are called retrotransposons. Many of the parasitic stretches were originally viruses that entered our DNA. Most of them don't do us any harm. They just copy and insert themselves in other parts of our DNA, basically replicating themselves. Sometimes they hop into other species and replicate themselves in a new host. According to one estimate, roughly one-third to one-half of all human DNA is basically parasitic.

If we expand our definition of parasite even further, and say that humans are parasites, (and I’m not just talking about freeloading relatives some of us may have). It could be said that the biosphere is our host; we do use it up for our own benefit. We do manipulate it. We alter the flows and fluxes of elements like carbon and nitrogen to benefit ourselves--often at the expense of the biosphere as a whole. If you look at how coral reefs or tropical forests are faring these days, you'll notice that our host is not doing that well right now.

As you may know from what I post about animals in other threads I, pardon the phrase “root for the underdog”, as I prefer Rats over Hamsters and Gerbils, Mutts over pure breed Dogs so on and so forth. So it should come as no surprise, I don't think there's anything all that bad about being called a parasite. Parasites are very sophisticated; parasites are highly evolved; parasites are very successful, as reflected in their diversity. In fact, I would say that we may be parasites, but we're not very good ones. Successful parasites do a very good job of balancing--using up their hosts and keeping them alive. It's all a question of tuning the adaptation to your particular host. In our case, we have only one host, so we have to be particularly careful.

I didn’t mean to turn this into an environmental rant, but what can you except from DVM who is also a Hippie? It comes with the territory.

Peace (see what I mean?)

[steve(thelil)]

My parents always blamed us for being mind controlling parasites.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by steve(thelil)

My parents always blamed us for being mind controlling parasites.

Your parents actually made the mistake of thinking that you had control of your mind?

[John L]

Originally Posted by patricia

Your parents actually made the mistake of thinking that you had control of your mind?

No, a mind-controlling parasite can't control his or her own mind. That is why he or she is compelled to seek out other minds to control.

[Enforcer]

Doc,

I found something on the parasite I asked you about. Incredible stuff!

A few of these internal parasites have developed ways to improve their chances of completing the hazardous connections in their life life-cycle. In northern Europe many small birds, such as flycatchers and thrushes, carry flukes within their gut.
The parasites' eggs fall to the ground in the bird's droppings where they may be eaten by a grazing snail. Inside the snails body, they hatch into small actively swimming larvae that bore their way through the gut wall and into the liver. There they reproduce themselves and form little mobile cysts which make regular journeys every morning into the snails tentacles. These are normally thin, but when the parasite forces its way into them they become thick and club like. Not only that, but the stretched wall of the tentacle becomes so thin that it is transparent and the parasite within is easily seen. It is brilliantly coloured, banded with yellow, orange and dark brown.
To make itself even more conspicuous, it pulsates. The presence of the parasite for some reason also changes the snail's behaviour. Instead of returning to the safety of the leaf litter soon after dawn, as uninfected snails do, it remains out in the open for much longer. The throbbing coloured bands within the swollen tentacles quickly attract foraging birds. Perhaps it is their resemblance to caterpillars on which many birds regularly feed. Whatever the reason, the birds flutter down, peck the tentacles off the unfortunate snail and swallow them.
Once again, a new generation of parasites has managed to reach the same kind of safe home as that in which its parents flourished.

[Doc Martin]

Originally Posted by Larry Nagel

Doc,

I found something on the parasite I asked you about. Incredible stuff!

A few of these internal parasites have developed ways to improve their chances of completing the hazardous connections in their life life-cycle. In northern Europe many small birds, such as flycatchers and thrushes, carry flukes within their gut.
The parasites' eggs fall to the ground in the bird's droppings where they may be eaten by a grazing snail. Inside the snails body, they hatch into small actively swimming larvae that bore their way through the gut wall and into the liver. There they reproduce themselves and form little mobile cysts which make regular journeys every morning into the snails tentacles. These are normally thin, but when the parasite forces its way into them they become thick and club like. Not only that, but the stretched wall of the tentacle becomes so thin that it is transparent and the parasite within is easily seen. It is brilliantly coloured, banded with yellow, orange and dark brown.
To make itself even more conspicuous, it pulsates. The presence of the parasite for some reason also changes the snail's behaviour. Instead of returning to the safety of the leaf litter soon after dawn, as uninfected snails do, it remains out in the open for much longer. The throbbing coloured bands within the swollen tentacles quickly attract foraging birds. Perhaps it is their resemblance to caterpillars on which many birds regularly feed. Whatever the reason, the birds flutter down, peck the tentacles off the unfortunate snail and swallow them.
Once again, a new generation of parasites has managed to reach the same kind of safe home as that in which its parents flourished.

Those are Amber Snails, the parasite is Leucochloridium paradoxum, which makes the Amber Snail act like this:

[Gary Sisco]

Here I thought you were talking about the 1% that owns and operates everything.

[Dr Dave]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Here I thought you were talking about the 1% that owns and operates everything.

No, just the .000001% that own the patent on the bio-engineered version of Toxoplasma gondii, which is causing us to ignore behaviors by others which are dangerous to us.

[Scott Dolan]

Old Major was right.

Well, kinda..........