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So far, we have seen that microbes can influence the development of guts and bones, blood vessels and T cells. Now we’ve seen that they can sway the brain too – the organ that, more than any other, makes us who we are. It is a disquieting thought. We put such a premium on our free will that the prospect of losing independence to unseen forces informs many of our deepest societal fears.
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The brain parasite Toxoplasma gondii is another puppetmaster. It can only sexually reproduce in a cat; if it gets into a rat, it suppresses the rodent’s natural fear of cat odours and replaces it with something more like sexual attraction. The rodent scurries towards nearby cats, with fatal results, and T. gondii gets to complete its life cycle.50
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They looked like tubes of lipstick that had been pushed out too far, or something even more sexually suggestive. They were actually giant worms.
So females, by mating with the right partners, can suddenly become immune to wasp attacks, which makes Hamiltonella that rarest of things: a desirable venereal infection.
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