“A thousand shows for you to see
But the lack of a good one worries me!
Only one channel and show it used to be one day!
All of us used to watch the Cat and the cute mouse play!”
If you ask someone which is your favorite cartoon show when you were young (er!) then if it an avid animation fan like me then his or her list will be huge! But for those who watch just for a while and for fun and passing time, rest assured that more often than not, their choice would be Tom and Jerry!
The original toon is so good that even now you can watch and enjoy it to your heart’s content! Of course you root for Jerry all the way but many time you definitely feel bad for Tom and this balance of emotion keeps the show going! In real life though if the cat smells a rat then rest assured most cats which have not been trained or tamed or spoilt would immediately grab the rat and they are in fact amazing and successful hunters! Personally though I am a dog lover and I am terrified of cats! Like Jerry or a typical mouse or rat!
But do you know that there is a condition which makes the rats lose their fear of cats and in fact get attracted to them!
There is this parasite which actually needs the gut of the cat to reproduce! So when they are present in the rat body, they make sure they get a Prime delivery to the cat!
The parasite is called Toxoplasma gondii!
The microbe is a single-celled pathogen that infects most types of mammal and bird, causing a disease called toxoplasmosis. But its effects on rodents are unique; most flee cat odour, but infected ones are mildly attracted to it!
A new research showed that even months after infection, when parasites are no longer detectable, the effect remains!
This of course raises the possibility that the microbe causes a permanent structural change in the brain! To put it in biological terms this is thought to be an evolutionary adaptation to help the parasite complete its life cycle: Toxoplasma can sexually reproduce only in the cat gut, and for it to get there, the pathogen’s rodent host must be eaten!
Even in humans, studies have linked Toxoplasma infection with behavioral changes and schizophrenia. These include an increased risk of traffic accidents in people infected with the parasite while another found changes in responses to cat odour!
People with schizophrenia are more likely than the general population to have been infected with Toxoplasma, and medications used to treat schizophrenia may work in part by inhibiting the pathogen’s replication!
Schizophrenia is thought to involve excess activity of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain. This has bolstered one possible explanation for Toxoplasma’s behavioral effect: the parasite establishes persistent infections by means of microscopic cysts that grow slowly in brain cells. It can increase those cells’ production of dopamine, which could significantly alter their function. Most other suggested mechanisms also rely on the presence of cysts!
The observation is that the infected rodents actually show a much more comprehensive decrease in general anxiety and reduced aversion to a wide range of threats! One study have shown that
T. gondii causes a phenomenon known as ‘fatal attraction’ in infected rodents!
So if you have had a fear of cat and now do not have that fear or if you see a rat trying to woo a cat; rest assured that it is time for a check up! Unless of course you are watching a movie with a cat or a tiger and the rat gets some magic potion! Tiger reminds me of birthday celebrity Tiger Prabhakar and his action stunts much like the Tom and Jerry toons!
Now try to catch up some old toons and sleep!
Shubh Ratri!
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