This got me thinking about how this silent epidemic, as it were, influences US politics, as well as many aspects of peoples' lives. At least 30% of the US population is said to be infected with the T. gondii cysts, and the immune reaction changes dopamine and other neuro-humors' concentrations.
The full paper is HERE: http://www.ncbi.nlm....les/PMC1635495/Can the common brain parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, influence human culture?
Kevin D Lafferty*
Western Ecological Research Centre, United States Geological Survey, Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA
*(Email: lafferty at lifesci.ucsb.edu).
Received April 21, 2006; Accepted June 6, 2006.
ABSTRACT
The latent prevalence of a long-lived and common brain parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, explains a statistically significant portion of the variance in aggregate neuroticism among populations, as well as in the ‘neurotic’ cultural dimensions of sex roles and uncertainty avoidance. Spurious or non-causal correlations between aggregate personality and aspects of climate and culture that influence T. gondii transmission could also drive these patterns. A link between culture and T. gondii hypothetically results from a behavioural manipulation that the parasite uses to increase its transmission to the next host in the life cycle: a cat. While latent toxoplasmosis is usually benign, the parasite's subtle effect on individual personality appears to alter the aggregate personality at the population level. Drivers of the geographical variation in the prevalence of this parasite include the effects of climate on the persistence of infectious stages in soil, the cultural practices of food preparation and cats as pets. Some variation in culture, therefore, may ultimately be related to how climate affects the distribution of T. gondii, though the results only explain a fraction of the variation in two of the four cultural dimensions, suggesting that if T. gondii does influence human culture, it is only one among many factors
Some of the personality changes sound like stereotypes of certain political stereotypes, both left and right:
" both infected men and women have higher levels of guilt-proneness
(they tend to be more apprehensive, self-doubting, worried, guilt
prone, insecure, worrying and self-blaming; Flegr & Hrdy 1994; Flegr
et al. 1996, 2000, 2003)."
sounds like the cliche of a 1950's liberal politician.
Some other traits influenced are cliches from the sterotypical conservative:
...rule-conscious, dutiful, conscientious, conforming, moralistic,
staid and rule-bound)... while infected men have lower ... novelty-seeking (low novelty-
seeking indicates rigid, loyal, stoic, slow-tempered and frugal
personalities)"
Some of the traits are contradictory, but that could be differences in strain of parasite, and severity or locus of infection.
Also possible, that like helminth parasites, we have adapted, so the parasite is needed to normalize biochemistry.
I find it disquieting that so many of us are likely influenced so much by this parasite. Did your family keep a cat or cats as pets when you were a child? Then you are probably infected.
Edited by maxwatt, 12 December 2011 - 02:48 PM.