Guided by Parasites: Toxoplasma Modified Humans

Tobias Tenny writes Guided by Parasites: Toxoplasma Modified Humans. He gives some background (exerted below) but points to an interview with Dr. Robert Sopalsky. The 20 minute video is below and transcript is here.

"Toxoplasma (Toxoplasma gondii) [Toxo] was first observed in 1908. You may have heard of it as the crazy parasite that makes rats attracted to cats. This, in its own right, is astonishing, interesting, & bizarre. It has also been widely known that pregnant women should stay clear of cat scat & other sources for Toxo as it can adversely affect the development of the fetus. Dr. Robert Sopalsky at Stanford has taken this link to humans further & has been studying, in detail, how it is affecting humans with some startling observation."

"The quick summary is that Toxo can only sexually reproduce in the gut of a cat. The cat then excretes Toxo in its feces which is then consumed by the intermediate hosts (e.g., a rat). Once in the rat Toxo’s goal is to then be eaten by a cat so it can be fruitful and multiply, but as I mentioned, this can only take place in the cat’s gut. Toxo’s goal is to get the rat eaten by a cat.

Toxo could get the desired effect through a whole sort of seemingly obvious ways; e.g., Make the rat hard to run so it is easier for a cat to catch it.  Instead it takes a far more interesting approach:

Toxo generates cysts in the brain of the rat. These cysts take over the fear center of the brain, but specifically the fear of predators. Common fear sources for rodents (e.g., bright lights, open spaces, etc.) still operate perfectly well in an infected rat, but now they are no longer afraid of cat piss.

That alone would be cool enough, but Toxo takes it one step further. When Toxo is going about futzing with the fear center of the brain it also goes into the sexual excitement part of the brain. It hijacks the incoming Fear of Cat Piss™ and instead diverts the signal to the Barry White™ center of the brain."

Then he goes on to describe the effects in humans.



This video is from Edge Video which looks to have tons of interesting stuff.