Humans who are too close to cats are believed to behave strangely.
Nationalgeographic.co.id—We probably know someone whose social media feed is filled with more photos of their feline friends than their human counterparts. Not a few also have cat-themed photos with quotes about cats.
Someone with a character like our friend is not a few. There are many other people who have similar traits with an excessive fondness for cats.
We may wonder: Is he like that because of his cat? Or does he have a cat because he’s like that?
Jack Turban, a researcher at Yale School of Medicine writing for Live Science, said that cats do have a strange and somewhat dark reputation in the field of neuroscience.
There are studies that show that cats’ proximity to other mammals can cause them to behave strangely. This cat’s strength is associated with a protozoa that lives in its feces, called Toxoplasma gondii (or Toxo for short).
In one study in Royal Society B by title “Fatal attraction in rats infected with Toxoplasma gondii”, the researchers showed that Toxo could enter the brains of mice and cause mice to stop avoiding areas where cats live. These mice, even attracted by the smell of cat urine.
Whereas previously the rats were disgusted by the smell of cat urine. But after the rats had their brains infected, they ran happily through the cat urine-filled environment.
They walked straight past the cat traps, until the young mouse’s life ended under its powerful claws.
Cat ownership doesn’t seem to actually increase the risk of psychosis.
The same protozoa can also affect the human brain. The immunocompromised patient can become infected from the litter box and develop a dangerous brain abscess.
We treat these patients with strong antibiotics and often recommend that they shed their cats.
Pregnant women are also warned not to handle cat litter, as the fetus does not yet have the immune system it needs to fight back cough
