The Cat Connection
The only animals in which Toxoplasma gondii can sexually reproduce belong to this popular pet family.
What are cats (felines)?
Instead of fleeing, infected mice and rats famously lose their fear of the smell of this predator's urine.
What is a cat?
In the readings, it is shown that Toxoplasma-positive drivers are significantly more likely to be involved in these sudden roadway events, possibly due to delayed reaction times and increased risk-taking.
What are car crashes/traffic accidents?
Roughly what fraction of the world's human population is estimated to carry Toxoplasma: 1 in 3, 1 in 5, or 1 in 10?
What is 1 in 3?
The most common chore pet owners are warned about because it can spread parasite eggs.
What is cleaning the litter box?
Once inside a mouse or human body, the dormant parasite forms long-lasting cysts primarily in muscles and this crucial organ.
What is the brain?
Researchers hypothesize that women perceive Toxoplasma- infected men as more masculine and dominant because latent infection is correlated with elevated levels of this steroid hormone.
What is testosterone?
The myth that Toxoplasma causes an obsessive love for felines gave rise to this classic pop-culture trope about an eccentric, pet-hoarding woman.
What is Crazy Cat Lady?
In biology, an animal in which a parasite reproduces sexually is called a definitive host, while an animal like a mouse or pig is called this type of host.
What is an intermediate host?
What is Attraction?
People diagnosed with the psychiatric disorder involving hallucinations and delusions show unusually high rates of Toxoplasma infection.
What is schizophrenia?
Neuroscientists think Toxoplasma may alter behavior by tinkering with this "feel-good" brain chemical linked to reward and risk-taking.
What is dopamine?
Pregnant women are routinely advised to avoid raw meat and cat feces because the parasite can harm this.
What is the baby?
When researchers treat infected rodents with dopamine receptor antagonists, this dramatic change occurs in their response to feline odor.
What is they regain their fear to the cat odor?
What is outgoing/sociable/warm-hearted?
People with this blood group marker are protected from the parasite's mental and driving impairments.
Biologists discovered that wild feline species (ranging from bobcats to lions) are essential for the parasite because they produce high enough levels of this specific dietary fatty acid that Toxoplasma requires to reproduce sexually.
What is Iinoleic acid?
In healthy rodents, cat odor triggers an innate flight response via the defensive circuit connecting the olfactory bulb, the hypothalamus, and this area in the brain responsible for emotional processing
What is the amygdala?
MRI scans revealed that schizophrenic patients lose volume in this specific brain tissue only if they test positive for Toxoplasma.
What is gray matter?
In evolutionary terms, humans are called this type of host because the parasite inside us rarely has any path to infect another feline.
What is a dean-end host?