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How Does Toxoplasma Gondii Alter Human Personality

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After Reading the article, I’m convinced that Toxoplasma gondii alters human personality. At first, I was skeptical about how a parasite whose definitive host is an animal (a cat) can change the behavior of their intermediate host (humans). Toxoplasma gondii is able to continue growing because of how sophisticated its reproduction process is. As the parasite reproduces, it makes its way to the hosts brain and from there alters the hosts behavior. The alteration in behavior leads to an increase in predation risk. This increase in predation occurs in rats where they would do things they wouldn’t normally do. For example, rodents would come out more often with the presence of a cat nearby. Rodents become less fearful of cats and enter traps more often. …show more content…

In the article, it states that in “infected women, intelligence, superego strength (rule-conscious, dutiful, conscientious, conforming, moralistic, staid and rule bound) and affectothymia (warm, outgoing, attentive to others, kindly, easy-going, participating and likes people) are higher, while infected men have lower intelligence, superego strength and novelty-seeking (low novelty seeking indicates rigid, loyal, stoic, slow-tempered and frugal personalities)” (Proc. R. Soc, 2006). This example in particular I’ve found very intriguing. There’s a difference on how the T. gondii changes the behavior of their hosts. The alteration in humans isn’t a severe as in rodents but it’s still present. In essence, T. gondii is playing a role in human personalities. T. gondii infecting humans isn’t as beneficial as infecting rodents/cats because a cat eating a human is a rarity. In very few cases, there are cats whose ate a human but the body was already decomposing. The infecting of hosts allows Toxoplasma gondii to continue its life cycle. Humans are considered dead end hosts hence why cats are the definitive

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