Half The World is Infected With This Parasite

heyyyyyy 42 here napoleon bonaparte is known to history as the brilliant military leader who led his armies to several prominent victories during the French Revolutionary Wars but just as famous as his military prowess is his diminutive stature a trait which more recently inspired the idea of the Napoleon complex the sense of inferiority felt by some short men which is typically compensated for through increased aggression heightened competitiveness and general ass holiness this is how it works for humans at least but this inverse relationship between size and a friendly disposition could just as easily be applied in the animal kingdom after all some of nature's smallest creatures are also the biggest Buster's meet the lancet liver fluke this little bundle of joy a species of parasitic flatworm starts out life as an egg nestled snugly in the doom of a grazing animal like a cow or sheep not the best way to enter the world admittedly I mean if your introduction to the world was being extruded out of a cow's you'd probably also grow up to be a rather contemptuous creature the as-yet on how to flips wait it out in their dirty nests until their first host the terrestrial snail happens to slide over once eaten by a snail the flukes make their way from the gut towards the lungs where they are eventually coughed up in the form of a slimeball it just so happens that answer rather partial to a spot of slime and it's when the lancet liver flukes find themselves in the belly of an ant that they earn themselves a serious promotion going from relatively harmless stowaway to captain of the whole dumb because once inside the nuts a fluke will make its way to the brain we're like the world's tiniest hacker it's slowly but surely takes over you see to complete its life cycle the lancet liver fluke needs to get itself back inside the gut of a grazing animal the only place where it can reach it subtle form but just how do you go about getting enhance inside the gut of a grazing animal even if you do control its brain if you can't think of an answer to that question then you are officially less intelligence than a Landsat liver fluke congratulations when night falls the fluke takes control over the hapless on steering a little creature not back towards the safety of its burrow but upwards no doubt wondering where the hell its own feet are taking its the ant will climb a nearby blade of grass or flower stem when it reaches just the right height the fluke forces the ant to sink its mandibles into whatever service it's standing on fixing it in place the ant will stay like that breathing but unable to move for the rest of the night waiting for a grazing animal to trundle along and gobble it up if the ant isn't eaten that night the fluke will recede back into the shadows releasing the puppet strings and letting the ant go about its regular ante business until the next night and the one after that until the ant is finally eaten flutes dastardly plan is accomplished zombie ants and mind-controlling worms might sound pretty terrifying but at least these kinds of parasites could never take control of a large complex brain like those found in our own skulls right right sadly no it isn't just ants who need to keep an eye out for parasitic infestations in their slime balls we do too now when you think of parasites in humans your mind probably conjures up images of tapeworms ticks or Gweneth Paltrow bloodsuckers and bowel dwellers that are undeniably disgusting but probably not life-threatening but it turns out there are other more insidious parasites butts are just as bad news for us humans as Lancet liver flukes are for ants take Nigeria fowleri for example or as it's more commonly known the brain eating amoeba and no I didn't make that name up this single-celled eukaryotes hangs out in warm bodies of stagnant freshwater like ponds or slow-moving rivers or even swimming pools without enough chlorine when inhaled for the nose by a human Nigeria fowleri takes its opportunity passing into the brain where it begins quite literally chowing down on our gray matter the body react swiftly sending a swarm of defensive agents to help out the brain if that sounds reassuring it shouldn't the roughly seven millimeters of bone that makes up the human skull is great for protecting our most precious organs from bumps and falls but it starts to seriously work against us if the massive neurons and blood inside begins to increase in volume as the pressure builds the brains connections the spinal cord becomes disrupted and well all hell breaks loose symptoms of Nigeria fowleri infection include headache fever stiff neck a loss appetite alterations to the sense of taste blurred vision loss of balance seizures and hallucinations back in 2015 a man from Taiwan managed to stick out this living nightmare for 25 days but most patients will die within a week thankfully whilst the amoeba itself is relatively common infections in humans occur only very rarely which is great because since the amoeba was first identified in 1965 around 99% of cases have proven fatal which probably shouldn't come as much as a surprise when you consider that this thing actually eats your brain next there's the African sleeping sickness a condition caused by the parasite Trypanosoma brucei eye which makes its way into us humans by way of a bite from a testify one safely inside a blood stream the parasite goes about feasting on whatever nutrients it can find they're causing fairly mild symptoms of fever headaches and joint pain sounds like a walk in the park compared to the world's tiniest episode of The Walking Dead that was denied Larry afoul Larry right well not exactly from here Trypanosoma brucei eye undergoes a series of form changes eventually reaching a state capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier a defensive mechanism designed to prevent foreign substances from entering the brain and central nervous system having slipped past our defenses Japan Assam abruzzi eye begins messing about with the very fabric of what makes you well you symptoms like confusion personality changes tremors sleep disruption loss of appetite and odd speech patterns soon follow if left untreated patients will become slow and unresponsive eventually lapsing into asleep from which they will never wake up death will soon follow the next and final lovely parasite I'm delighted to share with you is Toxoplasma gondii eye and is perhaps the most interesting why because there's a reasonable chance that you yes you watching this video are already infected with it estimates vary as to just how much of the human population is currently playing host to a Toxoplasma gondii i party but some studies suggest it could be as much as 30 to 50 percent and if that makes you feel uncomfortable you'd better fasten your seat belt remember how the lund set liver fluke takes over the minds of ants well Toxoplasma gondii I won't have you climbing trees or trying to get yourself ingested by a cow but it could change your behavior in small but significant ways the Toxoplasma gondii parasite is a particularly adaptable little critter and capable of taking up residence in almost any warm-blooded animal a trait that's extremely rare amongst parasites but of all the creatures it can inhabits there's only one in which it can sexually reproduce arguably the most cunning evil and downright me Mabel of all the animals on earth they're not so humble cat yes your cut may be carrying a parasite that can alter the way you think the muddled cut lady is a well-trodden trope that's been around for decades but it may be more accurate than any of us previously fought the typical life cycle of Toxoplasma gondii i sees it's ingested by a small mammal like a rat usually through contaminated water or droppings inside Toxoplasma gondii i spreads throughout the rats body taking up residence pretty much everywhere but particularly in the brain where it forms clusters of cysts in areas like the amygdala which is responsible for the brains fear response here Toxoplasma gondii i whips out his parasitical toolbox and gets busy tinkering somehow rewiring the brain so that instead of fearing the smell of cat urine as rats instinctively do the host rodent becomes sexually attracted to it perhaps unsurprisingly developing a fetish for cat piss is one hell of a good way to get yourself eaten by a cat and so the cycle continues but as we've heard Toxoplasma gondii AI isn't only carried by rats and mice and it isn't only rodents as are preyed upon by cats in the jungles of Gabon for example chimpanzees are preyed on by leopards and guess what studies have shown that chimps infected with Toxoplasma gondii I become morbidly attracted to the scent of leopard urine making them much more likely to become Leopard lunch and even animal as complex and large brained as a chimpanzee can be manipulated by this parasite it isn't such a stretch to imagine that we might be - we do share about 99% of the same DNA after all occupying a cozy spot at the top of the food chain we modern humans represent something of a dead end for the Toxoplasma gondii eye parasite it's going to struggle to convince us to be eaten by a cat after all even if cats do like to try every now and then but if we go back far enough we too were prey for big cats like cave lions saber-toothed cats on false saber-toothed cats so is Toxoplasma gondii i a parasite infecting billions of people around the world capable of actually changing our behavior believe it or not it just might be research in this area though not yet conclusive has hinted at some startling findings suggesting that this incredibly common parasite could well have an impact on our appetite for risk our moods our reaction times and even our mental health one study discovered that students in the u.s. who tested positive for Toxoplasma gondii I were 1.4 times as likely to be studying business and one point seven times as likely to have an educational emphasis in management and entrepreneurship the same study found that attendees at an entrepreneurship event who tested positive for Toxoplasma gondii I were 1.8 times as likely to have started their own business compared to those who tested negative this trend holds true at the national level too with countries with high levels of Toxoplasma gondii eye infections also showing increased entrepreneurial activity so perhaps your cat could make you a millionaire one day then there's the research coming out of Turkey that has shown those carrying Toxoplasma gondii eye are as much as two and a half times as likely to get into traffic accidents meaning the parasite may be responsible for hundreds of thousands of road deaths worldwide each year and yet another study that found people with intermittent explosive disorder which is surprisingly not to do with the bowels but is a psychiatric condition that leads to sudden outbursts of rage like road rage were more than twice as likely to test positive for Toxoplasma gondii eye these behaviors are strange indeed but all seem to be linked to changes in our risk appetite and natural human fear response we know that Toxoplasma gondii i makes my son's gyms less fearful in subtle but important ways and it looks like it might well be doing something similar too there's also growing evidence to suggest that Toxoplasma gondii I may be linked to psychological conditions like schizophrenia with one study suggesting the illness might be two to three times as common in individuals testing positive for the parasite versus the rest of the population is it more than just a coincidence then a schizophrenia is thought to have become prominent in the latter half of the 18th century right around the time people in Paris and London started keeping cats as pets I'll let you be the judge of that but the next time you flip someone the bird when they cut you up on the motorway or you wake up in the middle of the night with a killer idea and the strangers you quit your job and found your first start up selling avocados to Mexicans ask yourself one simple question are you really calling the shots or is it your not-so-friendly brain fungus thank you for watching if you enjoyed this video then please consider supporting me on patreon because it really helped me to continue to make them the links in the description also you can get your hands on a first edition signed copy of my new book sticker flagging it by heading on over to unbound delinked in the description I'm pre-ordering your copy today thank you

Channel: undefined

Views: 578,153

Rating: 4.9399014 out of 5

Keywords: parasite, brain, brain parasite, cats, cat, cat brain, weird, documentary, bacteria, virus, parasite explained, science, scientific, scientist, zombie, ants, zombie ant

Id: RCSA0E9q8zM

Length: 14min 34sec (874 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 17 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/KurtAngus]

Oh no.. any one of us could be infected

[u/Embarrassed-Aspect-4]

Toxo plasma... oh oh toxicplasmosis