The reality of Toxoplasma making zombies!

[sozzey]

I am new to the forum and I'm also an avid zombie genre fan and also film maker. As much as I've found the genre films a fave of mine, I have pondered the possible reality of the viral infected kind. And I researched and found there is a virus that invades the brains of insects and have been known to infect humans. The degree of effect has been measured to be actually mind altering in scientific studies. Toxoplasma is the identified culprit. I depicted the culprit in a current zombie series Inzombnia that I'm shooting 20 episodes for. Check it out and I hope you like it. Notice the antics of our zombies which is different the usual portrayal. This is the trailer:
http://horrorx.tv/?woo_video=inzombnia-trailer
Let me know what you think :0)

[Big Gulp]

SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT

I think this should be in the Biology section anyway...

[The Big Ugly]

What research has shown altered mentation in patients diagnosed with toxoplasmosis? It's a fairly benign disease, usually caused by careless handling of cat waste, and those with normal immune function generally have a positive prognosis... I'm not trying to bust your balls, but as someone who works in healthcare I'd be very interested to learn about some mutated form of this fairly benign pathogen.

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[sozzey]

my plug was shameless because it's relative to my association to this concept of zombie apocalyptic scenario. My relation to it does come from artistic perspective. As per the relevance of Toxoplasma gondii effect on humans you can check medical journals at Oxford U. I can give you a safe link but here's an excerpt "The results obtained during the past 15 years strongly suggest that latent toxoplasmosis influences the behavior not only of rodent hosts but also of humans. The neurophysiological mechanisms and practical effects of these behavioral changes, however, are still to be elucidated."

http://schizophreniabulletin.oxfordjour ... 3/757.full

[Big Gulp]

Do you really want to know what we think?

The link you provided was interesting but the effects on humans are minimal. The infection was not shown to cause any "Zombie" like symptoms in humans. The "mind altering" symptoms from the infection you say are your motivation for your films are no where near what the Zombies in your trailer were exhibiting. "...although the effect of the infection was modest and explained less than 10% of the variability in performance." http://schizophreniabulletin.oxfordjour ... 3/757.full, Havlicek J, Gasova Z, Smith AP, Zvara K, Flegr J. Decrease of psychomotor performance in subjects with latent ‘asymptomatic’ toxoplasmosis. Parasitology 2001;122:515-520
The signs and symptoms of the infected humans were things like paranoia and slow reaction times. Not running around on all four biting people. "The studies reviewed suggest that T. gondii may have subtle effects on personality and psychomotor performance." Lafferty KD. Can the common brain parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, influence human culture? Proc R Soc B Biol Sci 2006;273:2749-2755.


Also, I wish people would put where they were from in their profile so that we can better understand the reason for poor grammar, spelling, punctuation and sentence structure. If English is your second language we (English speaking Americans) won't be so critical of your inability to articulate your thoughts into words. I am guilty of being a smart ass to a user due to his poor command of the English language. I looked at their profile and saw that they were from another country and that English was their second language. After more discussion I learned that they were in fact an intelligent person with valid ideas and experiences. I can be an ass sometimes and I just want to understand where people are coming from before I say something hurtful or insulting.

That being said, are you a native English speaker?

In conclusion,I would not watch it.
Thanks
Big Gulp

[The Big Ugly]

The following are quotes from the link you provided above:

"Thus, the men were more likely to disregard rules and were more expedient, suspicious, jealous, and dogmatic. The personality of infected women, by contrast, showed higher warmth and higher superego strength (factors A and G on Cattell's 16PF), suggesting that they were more warm hearted, outgoing, conscientious, persistent, and moralistic." - No shit... Sounds like they "discovered" that women are maternal in nature.

"It is possible, eg, that individuals with certain personality characteristics behave in a manner that makes it more likely that they will become infected. For example, it was found that specific risk factors for Toxoplasma infection, such as contact with cats and the eating of raw or undercooked meat, were also related to some of Cattell's personality factor." - So this could have NOTHING at all to do with T. gondii infections...

"Confounding factors must also be considered as possible explanations. For example, in some countries, infection with T. gondii occurs more commonly in rural areas that is also where individuals are likely to have less education and consequently score lower on tests of verbal intelligence. 18 This can produce a spurious association between T. gondii infection and intelligence."

The researchers themselves even question the relevance of toxoplasmosis to patients with altered mentition. Considering that infection by the organism causes fever and mono-like symptoms, it's not hard to imagine some heightened irritability on the part of the patients. Zombie-fication, though, seems rather unlikely. Infection from such an organism is also self-limiting with regard to its spread...

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[sozzey]

Big gulp, how exactly did I not I not satisfy your grammar requirements? I'm on a thread not writing a thesis. I'm born and raised in Queens NY but my parents are Colombian. I'm 26 years old and I have an MFA degree from Queens College. Ironic to your accusative xenophobia, My ability in writing English won me an apprenticeship With UCLA professor Philip Frank Messina and my screenplays have been praised by Tribeca film festival founder Sharon Badal and NYILFF programmer Juan Caceres. I majored in creative writing minored in political science. My politics is primarily Libertarian fiscally conservative way socially liberal but I have an aversion to extremists right wing or left wing. My name is Hugo and I do sense that you intend to be snarky and if that's your way that's cool with me. To each his own. I'm apathetic to forum, phone, or road rage tough stuff. because it lacks any real confrontational objective. They call forum smart ass threading "trolling", is that what you're intending here? Or are you really that bothered by me? Next time I'll demonstrate some more grandiloquence so I can impress you lol Damn, you have me punctuating now! lol Excuse the lols Not gooder English ;0)

Now in reference to the topic Of course I recognize the Oxford study is preliminary to the scenario I'm depicting in Inzombnia, but of course I'm portraying an advancement of the Toxoplasma gondii which not only works for cinematic reasons, but also plausible in understanding that viruses to trend into tougher mutations. That much is true. And scientists profess they don't have a complete census on every virus in existence. And a true scientist has to accept the possibility of new strains and they do but they don't announce it because they're already being accused of alarmism. The lack of a recorded vicious mind altering toxoplasma doesn't dismiss it's plausibility to exist or eventually exist. We can look at it optimistically or pessimistically but the mathematics for the probability minus the emotion we attach, is real.

[AUA]

Toxoplasma is a parasite. As any parasite, its goal in life is to take over a host and live inside of it indefinitely, ideally for the duration of its life cycle.

As you can see in this illustration, Toxoplasma's primary goal is to live inside of a cat. We can infer this because the cat is where its reproductive cycle occurs (in contrast, its destructive cycle, where its offspring are propagated at the expense of cells akin to viruses, is in prey that the cat is likely to eat, such as mice, rats, or birds).

Humans are infected obliquely, by handling cat feces (as in, cleaning the litter box). This is not supposed to be part of the natural cycle of things, because in nature, other animals do not set up artificial things like litter boxes (something that is clearly not found in nature) and clean up after domesticated versions of other animals. In other words, we are NOT a part of this parasite's life cycle. After we are infected with it, it is usually resolved naturally, because our immune system IDs it as foreign and disposes of it (unlike those of, say, birds or cats).

Rabies, on the other hand, is zoonetic, and over time has evolved around its usual means of communication (one infected animal inflicting some sort of flesh wound and infecting others) by becoming adaptive to various types of animals (not only bats, but raccoons, cats, dogs, humans, etc).


Basically, the reason why I dismiss Toxoplasma as being a cause of zombieism is because doing harm to its host is not helpful to its self-preservation (a top priority among parasites; note that Toxoplasma is an actual live organism and not a virus).

There's this thing called 'microparasitism' that defines classical pathogens (like viruses or bacteria) in terms of being parasites; it's 'micro' because their life cycles are much shorter than that of a parasite, and they usually cycle through multiple times in a single host.

The above is relevant, because if you think about it, the most successful parasite is one that can literally live in its host indefinitely (meaning, a symbiotic relationship would be the ideal; this would make survival of the host and survival of the 'parasite' self-benefiting for both parties).

Evolution tends to benefit the least harmful parasite/microparasite the longer a parasite/microparasite lives in/with an organism. E. Coli, under other circumstances, is a harmful pathogen, but when in a specific place (ideal for its own survival and that of its host, the intestines), it extracts vital nutrients in addition to having ample food, a warm enviroment, and a chemical paradise in which to live.

Likewise, Toxoplasma, when inside of a cat, does not do any physical harm to the cat. As a host, the cat provides an ideal environment in which to reproduce, and it does so with little incident. You hear about this parasite affecting the behavior of rats, but in a VERY SPECIFIC WAY: it makes them want to approach cats rather than fear being eaten by them. Why?

So the cat can eat the rat and thus allow the parasite to reproduce (the cat is the host).

Any other behavioral change, like violence, is going to make the cat avoid the rat. So, following the principle of natural selection, the parasite developed a tendency to influence behavior in a specific way for a specific end (to get into the cat).



Additionally, humans are an apex predator, at the very top, because of our ability to think and thus construct physical barriers (shelter) and weapons to kill other animals (both defensively and offensively). There's no animal that reliably and consistently eats us, so there's no reason to control us, specifically (a lower animal that is a typical human meal, like a cow or chicken, would be ideal to be a vector for infection, but not us).

A parasite has pretty much no reason to infect us other than as a host of opportunity (read: because we clean litter boxes, have other artificial behaviors, or otherwise happened to be in a position/state that made us vulnerable to infection).

Implying that something like toxoplasma is potentially a zombie parasite is alarmist, because the likelihood of that sort of adaptation being advantageous to the parasite is so low that it's almost astronomical.

For it to even develop the potential to become a zombie parasite, humans have to be regularly and consistently infected, over many hosts and over many years; this would be akin to saying that not washing your hands after cleaning a litter box is normal (which it most likely isn't; if cat shit doesn't offend a nose, then that person was probably already infected with E. Coli anyway). Remember, Toxoplasma wants to get into a CAT, not a human.

[Big Gulp]

Hugo,
I was not being snarky. You asked for our opinion so I gave you mine. I am trying to be genuine and not be an ass to people here. I am very straight forward and I usually say what is on my mind. That usually gives people the wrong impression of my intentions.
I asked about your writing because it is a little fragmented and hard to tell whether you are making a statement or asking a question. I am not trying to be an ass but when you defended your writing prowess with poor grammar and random punctuation it made me laugh a little.To me it just looks like you are trying a little too hard to sound smart. Which usually does not turn out well. My brother for example, has a MBA and makes a crap load of money but he has a horrible vocabulary which makes him seem less intelligent than he really is. I wont nitpick your grammar anymore.

I can tell that you have passion for what you and you want to share your work. That is excellent and I don't wish you any ill will. I am an artist and I went to school for illustration and graphic design. I worked for a bit as a free lance designer in the Auto industry. I hated it so I changed fields and now I am in Law Enforcement. I love my job now!!! I know what it is like to have your work be constantly criticized and interpreted. It sucks!

You might have had a better response if you just posted your video for consideration and then talked about the medical stuff later. I read the the title and was expecting something more. The video was unexpected.

I did not like the style or quality of your film, it just wasn't my taste. That is my honest feedback.
I hope you get more feedback on your video and not just your artistic interpretation of the Toxoplasma gondii virus.

Good luck

[Jamie]

There was a great podcast about this very subject on the "Stuff you should know" podcast...they're pretty smart guys, and talked pretty convincingly about it as being for real...

Just saying'

Now fight more!

Jamie

[Big Gulp]

There was a great podcast about this very subject on the "Stuff you should know" podcast...they're pretty smart guys, and talked pretty convincingly about it as being for real...

Just saying'

Now fight more!

Jamie

LOL

I am on several other forums and I have never seen as much arguing as I have here. I guess it is because there are so many different topics and reasons for being here. Where as the common thread on the other sites are things like Jeeps and a certain brand of gun, the common denominator here seems to be that we are all opinionated butt heads

[sozzey]

AUA "Czech parasitologist named Jaroslav Flegr decided to look for evidence that T. gondii's mind-meddling extends beyond rats. Testing the blood of drivers responsible for causing traffic accidents, he discovered they were two and a half times more likely to have been exposed to T. gondii than the general population." Effects on humans have been documented and intriguing for a premise.

Big Gulp, in a way I appreciate the honesty. There's no better opinion than from someone who's not invested in me as a friend or associate. And you're right, big word usage or grandiloquence, which I used for the irony of the word lol, can be desperate means to want perception that one is an intellectual. Which is why I'm lackadaisical on forum posts grammar wise. I use i instead of I, ur instead of your cuz I'm lazy lol. See that? "cuz" lol That's laziness. So are you not into zombie genre stuff or you just didn't like Inzombnia? What didn't you like? I think you mentioned you didn't like the look. Any reason why? And go ahead be honest, i'm thick skinned.