Fatal attraction phenomenon in humans: cat odour attractiveness increased for toxoplasma-infected men while decreased for infected women.
Latent toxoplasmosis, a lifelong infection with the protozoan Toxoplasma gondii, has cumulative effects on the behaviour of hosts, including humans. The most impressive effect of toxoplasmosis is the "fatal attraction phenomenon," the conversion of innate fear of cat odour into attraction...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:1c1b942e480a47adb864d87131e80dfc 2023-05-15T15:15:22+02:00 Fatal attraction phenomenon in humans: cat odour attractiveness increased for toxoplasma-infected men while decreased for infected women. Jaroslav Flegr Pavlína Lenochová Zdeněk Hodný Marta Vondrová 2011-11-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001389 https://doaj.org/article/1c1b942e480a47adb864d87131e80dfc EN eng Public Library of Science (PLoS) http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3210761?pdf=render https://doaj.org/toc/1935-2727 https://doaj.org/toc/1935-2735 1935-2727 1935-2735 doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0001389 https://doaj.org/article/1c1b942e480a47adb864d87131e80dfc PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, Vol 5, Iss 11, p e1389 (2011) Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine RC955-962 Public aspects of medicine RA1-1270 article 2011 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001389 2022-12-31T11:12:40Z Latent toxoplasmosis, a lifelong infection with the protozoan Toxoplasma gondii, has cumulative effects on the behaviour of hosts, including humans. The most impressive effect of toxoplasmosis is the "fatal attraction phenomenon," the conversion of innate fear of cat odour into attraction to cat odour in infected rodents. While most behavioural effects of toxoplasmosis were confirmed also in humans, neither the fatal attraction phenomenon nor any toxoplasmosis-associated changes in olfactory functions have been searched for in them.Thirty-four Toxoplasma-infected and 134 noninfected students rated the odour of urine samples from cat, horse, tiger, brown hyena and dog for intensity and pleasantness. The raters were blind to their infection status and identity of the samples. No signs of changed sensitivity of olfaction were observed. However, we found a strong, gender dependent effect of toxoplasmosis on the pleasantness attributed to cat urine odour (p = 0.0025). Infected men rated this odour as more pleasant than did the noninfected men, while infected women rated the same odour as less pleasant than did noninfected women. Toxoplasmosis did not affect how subjects rated the pleasantness of any other animal species' urine odour; however, a non-significant trend in the same directions was observed for hyena urine.The absence of the effects of toxoplasmosis on the odour pleasantness score attributed to large cats would suggest that the amino acid felinine could be responsible for the fatal attraction phenomenon. Our results also raise the possibility that the odour-specific threshold deficits observed in schizophrenia patients could be caused by increased prevalence of Toxoplasma-infected subjects in this population rather than by schizophrenia itself. The trend observed with the hyena urine sample suggests that this carnivore, and other representatives of the Feliformia suborder, should be studied for their possible role as definitive hosts in the life cycle of Toxoplasma. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Arctic PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases 5 11 e1389 |
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Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
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ftdoajarticles |
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English |
topic |
Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine RC955-962 Public aspects of medicine RA1-1270 |
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Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine RC955-962 Public aspects of medicine RA1-1270 Jaroslav Flegr Pavlína Lenochová Zdeněk Hodný Marta Vondrová Fatal attraction phenomenon in humans: cat odour attractiveness increased for toxoplasma-infected men while decreased for infected women. |
topic_facet |
Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine RC955-962 Public aspects of medicine RA1-1270 |
description |
Latent toxoplasmosis, a lifelong infection with the protozoan Toxoplasma gondii, has cumulative effects on the behaviour of hosts, including humans. The most impressive effect of toxoplasmosis is the "fatal attraction phenomenon," the conversion of innate fear of cat odour into attraction to cat odour in infected rodents. While most behavioural effects of toxoplasmosis were confirmed also in humans, neither the fatal attraction phenomenon nor any toxoplasmosis-associated changes in olfactory functions have been searched for in them.Thirty-four Toxoplasma-infected and 134 noninfected students rated the odour of urine samples from cat, horse, tiger, brown hyena and dog for intensity and pleasantness. The raters were blind to their infection status and identity of the samples. No signs of changed sensitivity of olfaction were observed. However, we found a strong, gender dependent effect of toxoplasmosis on the pleasantness attributed to cat urine odour (p = 0.0025). Infected men rated this odour as more pleasant than did the noninfected men, while infected women rated the same odour as less pleasant than did noninfected women. Toxoplasmosis did not affect how subjects rated the pleasantness of any other animal species' urine odour; however, a non-significant trend in the same directions was observed for hyena urine.The absence of the effects of toxoplasmosis on the odour pleasantness score attributed to large cats would suggest that the amino acid felinine could be responsible for the fatal attraction phenomenon. Our results also raise the possibility that the odour-specific threshold deficits observed in schizophrenia patients could be caused by increased prevalence of Toxoplasma-infected subjects in this population rather than by schizophrenia itself. The trend observed with the hyena urine sample suggests that this carnivore, and other representatives of the Feliformia suborder, should be studied for their possible role as definitive hosts in the life cycle of Toxoplasma. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Jaroslav Flegr Pavlína Lenochová Zdeněk Hodný Marta Vondrová |
author_facet |
Jaroslav Flegr Pavlína Lenochová Zdeněk Hodný Marta Vondrová |
author_sort |
Jaroslav Flegr |
title |
Fatal attraction phenomenon in humans: cat odour attractiveness increased for toxoplasma-infected men while decreased for infected women. |
title_short |
Fatal attraction phenomenon in humans: cat odour attractiveness increased for toxoplasma-infected men while decreased for infected women. |
title_full |
Fatal attraction phenomenon in humans: cat odour attractiveness increased for toxoplasma-infected men while decreased for infected women. |
title_fullStr |
Fatal attraction phenomenon in humans: cat odour attractiveness increased for toxoplasma-infected men while decreased for infected women. |
title_full_unstemmed |
Fatal attraction phenomenon in humans: cat odour attractiveness increased for toxoplasma-infected men while decreased for infected women. |
title_sort |
fatal attraction phenomenon in humans: cat odour attractiveness increased for toxoplasma-infected men while decreased for infected women. |
publisher |
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
publishDate |
2011 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001389 https://doaj.org/article/1c1b942e480a47adb864d87131e80dfc |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic |
genre_facet |
Arctic |
op_source |
PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, Vol 5, Iss 11, p e1389 (2011) |
op_relation |
http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3210761?pdf=render https://doaj.org/toc/1935-2727 https://doaj.org/toc/1935-2735 1935-2727 1935-2735 doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0001389 https://doaj.org/article/1c1b942e480a47adb864d87131e80dfc |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001389 |
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PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases |
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5 |
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11 |
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e1389 |
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