Brain Parasite Infection Linked To Schizophrenia & Suicide

[weakmagneto]

Toxoplasma Gondii Brain Parasite Infection From Cats Linked To Schizophrenia, Suicide
Huffington Post
July 5, 2012
By Christie Wilcox

We human beings are very attached to our brains. We’re proud of them – of their size and their complexity. We think our brains set us apart, make us special. We scare our children with tales of monsters that eat them, and obsessively study how they work, even when these efforts are often fruitless. So, of course, we are downright offended that a simple, single-celled organism can manipulate our favorite organ, influencing the way we think and act.

Toxoplasma gondii is arguably the most interesting parasite on the planet. In the guts of cats, this single-celled protozoan lives and breeds, producing egg-like cells which pass with the cats bowel movements. These find their way into other animals that come in contact with cat crap. Once in this new host, the parasite changes and migrates, eventually settling as cysts in various tissues including the host’s brain, where the real fun begins. Toxoplasma can only continue its life cycle and end up a happy adult in a cat’s gut if it can find its way into a cat’s gut, and the fastest way to a cat’s gut, of course, is to be eaten by a cat. Incredibly, the parasite has evolved to help ensure that this occurs. For example, Toxoplasma infection alters rat behavior with surgical precision, making them lose their fear of (and even become sexually aroused by!) the smell of cats by hijacking neurochemical pathways in the rat’s brain.

Of course, rats aren’t the only animals that Toxoplasma ends up in. Around 1/3 of people on Earth carry these parasites in their heads. Since Toxoplasma has no trouble affecting rats, whose brains are similar in many ways to our own, scientists wonder how much the parasite affects the big, complex brains we love so much. For over a decade, researchers have investigated how this single-celled creature affects the way we think, finding that indeed, Toxoplasma alters our behavior and may even play a role in cultural differences beween nations.

The idea that this tiny protozoan parasite can influence our minds is old news. Some of the greatest science writers of our time have waxed poetic about how it sneaks its way into our brains and affects our personalities. Overall, though, the side effects of infection are thought to be minor and relatively harmless. Recently, however, evidence has been mounting that suggests the psychological consequences of infection are much darker than we once thought.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/0 ... &ir=Canada

[wolfhnd]

The old adage you are what you eat comes to mind.

While few people intentional eat cat poo the same can be said for many toxic substances we come in contact with. The tiny amount of toxin required to dramatically alter perception is perhaps best illustrated by LSD. The precursor of LSD, lysergic acid, is a naturally accruing substance and as such may occasional naturally be transformed into psychoactive chemicals. There must be many more of these "mind altering" parasites and chemicals out there than we know about. My concern is that people are concerned. The human race has got on pretty well living with the millions of toxins that exist naturally and will perhaps get along with the man made variety as well. In the past people just died were buried and everyone got on with there lives. I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't learn as much as we can about our environment as we can. What I'm suggesting is that having recently arrived at a state of slightly lesser ignorance we now seem faced with the reality that the world is a dangerous place. We are aware of dangers that in our recent past we had not a clue of. Instead of using this knowledge in a logical way we run around almost in a panic crying the sky is falling. The only explanation I can think of is a distorted view of reality that is a hangover from the not to distant past bliss of ignorance. Unless of course you actually believe that LSD can be a spiritual experience ;-). Which of course leads us to the acceptance that the human race has a predisposition to accept a certain type of ignorance. A predisposition directly proportional to ego, ironic really :-).