Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2006 Nov 7;273(1602):2749-55.
doi: 10.1098/rspb.2006.3641.

Can the common brain parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, influence human culture?

Kevin D Lafferty  1
Affiliations

Can the common brain parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, influence human culture?

Kevin D Lafferty. Proc Biol Sci. .

Abstract

The latent prevalence of a long-lived and common brain parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, explains a statistically significant portion of the variance in aggregate neuroticism among populations, as well as in the 'neurotic' cultural dimensions of sex roles and uncertainty avoidance. Spurious or non-causal correlations between aggregate personality and aspects of climate and culture that influence T. gondii transmission could also drive these patterns. A link between culture and T. gondii hypothetically results from a behavioural manipulation that the parasite uses to increase its transmission to the next host in the life cycle: a cat. While latent toxoplasmosis is usually benign, the parasite's subtle effect on individual personality appears to alter the aggregate personality at the population level. Drivers of the geographical variation in the prevalence of this parasite include the effects of climate on the persistence of infectious stages in soil, the cultural practices of food preparation and cats as pets. Some variation in culture, therefore, may ultimately be related to how climate affects the distribution of T. gondii, though the results only explain a fraction of the variation in two of the four cultural dimensions, suggesting that if T. gondii does influence human culture, it is only one among many factors.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Association between two measures of aggregate neuroticism and the prevalence of T. gondii, data grouped by the reporting nation. Each measure is represented by a separate symbol. In some cases, but not all, each measure was made independently in the same country. Because Lester's measure of neuroticism was correlated with both per capita GDP and prevalence, for the purpose of the figure, the residuals were plotted. For plotting purposes, both measures of neuroticism were standardized to a mean of 0 and s.d. of 1. Statistical comparisons were not done with the pooled data (see text).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Association between the cultural dimension of uncertainty avoidance and the prevalence of T. gondii; data grouped by the reporting nation.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Association between the cultural dimension of masculine sex roles and the prevalence of T. gondii; data grouped by the reporting nation.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Aspinall T.V, Marlee D, Hyde J.E, Sims P.F.G. Prevalence of Toxoplasma gondii in commercial meat products as monitored by polymerase chain reaction—food for thought? Int. J. Epidemiol. 2002;32:1193–1199. - PubMed
    1. Baril L, Ancelle T, Goulet V, Thulliez P, Tirard-Fleury V, Carme B. Risk factors for infection with Toxoplasma infection in pregnancy, a case-control study in France. Scand. J. Infect. Dis. 1999;31:305–309. doi:10.1080/00365549950163626 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Batet C.M, et al. Toxoplasmosis and pregnancy. Multicenter study of 16,362 pregnant women in Barcelona. Medica Clinice. 2004;123:12–16. - PubMed
    1. Benjamin J, Li L, Patterson C, Greenberg B.D, Murphy D.L, Hamer D.H. Population and familial association between the D4 dopamine receptor gene and measures of novelty seeking. Nat. Genet. 1996;12:81–84. doi:10.1038/ng0196-81 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Berdoy M, Webster J.P, Macdonald D.W. Fatal attraction in rats infected with Toxoplasma gondii. Proc. R. Soc. B. 2000;267:1591–1594. doi:10.1098/rspb.2000.1182 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources