AI Article Synopsis
- Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan parasite that infects various hosts, creating brain cysts during its latent phase and altering rat behavior to decrease their aversion to cat smells.
- This behavioral change is thought to be a strategy by the parasite to enhance the chances of transmission to its main host, felines, though direct evidence of increased predation is still lacking.
- The authors suggest a neuroendocrine mechanism involving gonadal steroids as key in how the parasite manipulates host behavior, proposing that the presence of brain cysts is not fundamentally necessary for the behavioral changes observed.
Article Abstract
The protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii infects a wide range of intermediate hosts. The parasite produces brain cysts during the latent phase of its infection, in parallel to causing a loss of innate aversion in the rat host towards cat odors. Host behavioral change presumably reflects a parasitic manipulation to increase predation by definitive felid hosts, although evidence for increased predation is not yet available. In this opinion piece, we propose a neuroendocrine loop to explain the role of gonadal steroids in the parasitized hosts in mediating the behavioral manipulation. We argue that the presence of tissue cysts within the host brain is merely incidental to the behavioral change, without a necessary or sufficient role.
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| http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pt.2020.12.006 | DOI Listing |
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