Parasitic manipulation or side effects? The effects of past Toxoplasma gondii and Borrelia spp. infections on human personality and cognitive performance are not mediated by impaired health.
behaviour
borreliosis
manipulation hypothesis
personality
side effects hypothesis
toxoplasmosis
Journal
Folia parasitologica
ISSN: 1803-6465
Titre abrégé: Folia Parasitol (Praha)
Pays: Czech Republic
ID NLM: 0065750
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
28 Nov 2023
28 Nov 2023
Historique:
received:
13
06
2023
accepted:
31
10
2023
medline:
12
12
2023
pubmed:
12
12
2023
entrez:
12
12
2023
Statut:
epublish
Résumé
Bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi s. l. and even more the protist Toxoplasma gondii Nicolle et Manceaux, 1908, are known to affect the behaviour and mental health of their animal and human hosts. Both pathogens infect a significant fraction of human population, both are neurotropic and survive in the host's body for a long time. While latent infections were thought to be clinically asymptomatic, recent studies suggest otherwise, revealing adverse effects on human health. It was hypothesised that the specific behavioural effects of these pathogens may be side effects of general health impairments in infected individuals. This hypothesis was tested using about one hour-long survey consisting of questionnaires and performance tests on a cohort of 7,762 members of the internet population. Results showed that individuals infected with T. gondii reported worse physical and mental health, and those infected with Borrelia spp. reported worse physical health than uninfected controls. Furthermore, infected and noninfected individuals differed in several personality traits, including conscientiousness, pathogen disgust, injury disgust, Machiavellianism, narcissism, tribalism, anti-authoritarianism, intelligence, reaction time, and precision. While the majority of behavioural effects associated with Borrelia infection were similar to those associated with Toxoplasma infection, some differences were observed, such as performance in the Stroop test. Path analyses and nonparametric partial Kendall correlation tests showed that these effects were not mediated by impaired health in infected individuals, contradicting the side effects hypothesis.
Identifiants
pubmed: 38084079
doi: 10.14411/fp.2023.020
doi:
pii:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Références
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