In my world, everyone's a pony and they all eat rainbows and poop butterflies!

(title comes from Dr. Seuss of course)

While I was attending a journalism class during my Ph.D. years, we had these assignments in which we had to translate scientific research into articles for magazines. It was one of the only classes I actually wanted to take, although the choice is made much easier when you have to choose between journalism and 'ethical questions in your research'.

I had fun, although I doubt my teacher approved of the subjects of my writings. One of the most interesting subjects I chose to write about was a study on the relationship between a parasitic infection (Toxoplasmosis Gondii; TG) and schizophrenia*. To summarize, rats are prone to TG. When infected, they become these kamikaze-creatures with a craving for hugging cats. This is great news for TG, because they can only reproduce in the bowels of cats. To make a long story short, rat eat TG, cat eat rat, cat scratch man or man eats cat (depending on the country you live in), man becomes schizophrenic.You still with me?

Now this is all fine and dandy, but we want scientific proof, right? So enter Professor Jaroslav Flegr, who found significant behavioral changes in humans as a consequence of infection with TG. Apparently, women become polygamous with a craving to spend money, whereas an infection in men leads to an increase in aggressive, jealous behavior. Great combination, which would fit neatly in the kamikaze theory I think. How this would be connected to schizophrenia is not clear though.

More 'clear cut' evidence for a link is the finding that schizophrenic people more often hug with cats compared to non schizophrenic people (54 to 42 percent). Although you could argue that the fondness for cat-hugging resulted in schizophrenia for the cat-hugging people, I could easily counter that by claiming that schizophrenic people might feel a fondness for cats precisely because they can relate to the whimsical (schizophrenic) behavior of their pet-of-choice. It's the ancient question of chicken and egg, converted to cat-hugging and schizophrenia.

A final piece of evidence comes from Dr. Torrey, an American psychiatrist and great supporter of the TG-schizophrenia link. He treated infected rats with two types of medicine: medicine against TG, and anti-schizophrenic medicine. Both treatments seemed to cure the rats from their kamikaze-behavior, but the anti-schizophrenic medicine was more effective.


So although your next step might be to dump your cat, you might want to consider the fact that infection with TG is much more likely when eating rare meat.


To end in style with another quote from Dr. Seuss:
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind."
(And I am sure you did get the pun of Dr. Seuss? No? The Cat in the Hat? No? Well, then you are beyond my help)

*It maybe of interest to mention that a similar relationship has been claimed between TG and autism.