評論
打印
Passing Infection Removes Mice's Feline Fear Forever
傳遞感染會讓老鼠永遠喪失對貓的恐懼
A bad infection can make you delirious. But usually the mind clears once the germs are gone. Usually.
嚴(yán)重的感染會導(dǎo)致你神志不清。但是通常病菌消失之后你就會變得清醒。通常是。
Not so when researchers recently injected mice with Toxoplasma gondii. This parasitic protozoan only gets amorous inside the gut of a cat. The resulting fertilized eggs wind up in a litter box. Their challenge is to grow up and get back inside a feline. The solution: get eaten by a mouse that gets eaten by a cat.
研究人員最近給小白鼠注射弓形蟲卻沒符合慣例。這種寄生蟲只在貓的腸道里繁殖。由此產(chǎn)生的受精卵散入垃圾箱內(nèi)。它們的挑戰(zhàn)是長大重新回到貓體內(nèi)。解決方案是被被貓吃掉的老鼠吃掉。
The expelled eggs wait until they become a meal for a mouse. The parasites then move to the mouse’s brain. Where they stop the rodent from fearing the smell of cat urine. The delirious mouse approaches Fluffy and, voila, the parasite finds its way home.
幼卵等待變成老鼠的一餐。然后進入老鼠的大腦。它們使老鼠喪失對貓尿氣味的恐懼。神志不清的老鼠接近貓，就這樣，寄生蟲找到了回家的路。
In past trials, mice almost always died of this kind of infection. This study used weaker strains of Toxo and the mice recovered—but they stayed blasé about the cat smell.
過去的實驗中，老鼠幾乎總是死于這樣的感染。這次的研究用了較弱的病毒，老鼠恢復(fù)了，但是它們還是不害怕貓的氣味。
That a curable infection can cause permanent behavior changes is worrisome because this same parasite infects 60 million people in the U.S. alone. Most cases produce no symptoms. But some evidence links chronic infection to schizophrenia and a cluster of other mental illnesses—known unscientifically as “crazy cat lady syndrome."
可治愈的感染 引起永久性的行為改變是令人擔(dān)憂的，因為同樣的寄生蟲感染單單在美國每年會感染6000萬人。大多數(shù)情況下不會產(chǎn)生癥狀。但是一些證據(jù)證明慢性感染跟精神分裂癥和其他精神疾病，俗稱為瘋狂貓夫人綜合癥，有關(guān)。
—Wayt Gibbs
