Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
http://theconversation.com/how-parasites-and-bacteria-could-be-
changing-the-way-you-think-and-feel-71309
1. Robbie Rae
Lecturer in Genetics, Liverpool John Moores University
Disclosure statement
Robbie Rae does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would
benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Partners
Liverpool John Moores University provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under Creative Commons licence.
Not quite yourself. Shutterstock
Email
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
Print
Given recent events around the world, you could be forgiven for thinking that people have
been acting in a very odd and unpredictable manner. There has been much research across
psychology and economics to explain why we behave the way we do and to explore what our
motivations may be. But what if there are other unseen influences at play? As science
uncovers more about the influence of parasites and bacteria on human behaviour, we may
well begin to see how they also shape our societies.
Mind control is a very real and prevalent threat to humans. We already know it is used by
many organisms throughout the animal kingdom and how essential it is for the transmission
and reproduction of many diverse parasitic species. The Cordyceps fungus, for example,
infects ants before making them travel to the top of the tree canopy where they die. The
fungus then reproduces and its offspring float down to the forest floor to infect more ants.
Nematomorph worms, meanwhile, make their cricket hosts commit suicide by jumping into
water and drowning in order to get back to where they normally live. And parasitic
trematodes infect snails so that their eyestalks bulge and change colour to red, blue and
yellow. The next host, a bird, sees a juicy maggot and pecks off the eyestalks so the trematode
can complete its lifecycle in the bird’s gut.
But it was recently shown that the gut microbes that break down food can directly affect the
production of another neurotransmitter (serotonin) in the colon and blood, which can then in
turn affect communicative, anxiety-like and nerve-related (sensorimotor) behaviours. In the
future, there may be the possibility of treating anxiety or depression by administering a
“healthy” microbiome, and recent research altering the microbiomes of patients suffering
from Clostridium infections has shown excellent results via faecal transplantation from
healthy individuals.
With further research we will begin to unravel just how these microscopic overlords are
manipulating our decisions – and their influence on society, culture and politics should not be
underestimated.