o_O

[rivendellrose]

Now here's an odd one.

From September, 2003: Common infection passed from cats to humans may alter personalities.

I do not even know how to begin to think about this.

And here. Have another one while I'm at it: Some PETA workers in NC seem to have gone round the bend and come out on the opposite side of what PETA usually works for?

Comments

[scearley.livejournal.com]

Yeha that's what I'm thinking, at least about the slight personality changes the article you link to refers to.

Just about the only way to get Toxoplasmosis is to handle cat feces. So if you described a man as "scruffy and antisocial" then mentioned that "oh yeah, he's been juggling cat shit too" then you wouldn't think that the presence of cats in his life caused this, you'd have to think that something clicked in the guy's mind that the Toxo is merly enhancing.

Or at least I would.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

That would be my impulse, too. Especially since the stereotypes they listed about women who have the infection are pretty much the stereotypes of the kind of woman who tends to like cats. Unless you go completely to the other end of the stereotype with the "crazy old cat lady."

I would definitely need more evidence (especially evidence that it was getting the cat that created this personality type, not that it was pre-existing) in order to believe this.

[scearley.livejournal.com]

The corollary is more interesting. That first-episode schizophrenics across the board have more toxoplasmosis antibodies than other people, including later-episode schizophrenics.

Which could mean that either exposure to toxo alters a healthy mind, or that the onset of schizophrenia increases antibodies for a disease in the body when there is no disease. That brings up the metaphor that the onset of schizophrenia is like getting a shot of penicillin.