The Null Device

Cats and mental illness: cause and effect

Those stereotypes of crazy cat people may have some truth to them. A Czech scientist has found that a cat parasite causes behavioral changes in human hosts. Men infected by the toxoplasma gondii parasite tend to be "quiet, withdrawn, suspicious, jealous and dogmatic" (i.e., the typical cranky cat-owning misanthrope), whereas infected women tend to be "reckless and friendly", with slower reaction times (i.e., the typical flaky cat lady).

There are 1 comments on "Cats and mental illness: cause and effect":

Posted by: mitch http:// Wed Sep 24 01:22:17 2003

http://www.natur.cuni.cz/~flegr/