Parasites brainwash grasshoppers into death dive

Parasites brainwash grasshoppers into death dive

A parasitic worm that makes the grasshopper it invades jump into water and commit suicide does so by chemically influencing its brain, a study of the insects’ proteins reveal.

The parasitic Nematomorph hairworm (Spinochordodes tellinii) develops inside land-dwelling grasshoppers and crickets until the time comes for the worm to transform into an aquatic adult. Somehow mature hairworms brainwash their hosts into behaving in way they never usually would – causing them to seek out and plunge into water...

...the eventual hope is that understanding how parasites manipulate their hosts’ behaviour – by affecting the nervous and endocrine systems – might further the understanding of how human behaviour-systems link.

Aside from being absolutely fascinating....this has real spooky implications.

loam - this is INCREDIBLE!!!!

Would you PLEASE write it up for atsnn?

...BTW - I really want to know exactly what protein(s) is/are involved in this process.

There are other examples of things like this, there's some parasite of snails that makes them climb high and expose themselves to birds so they get eaten because the next stage of the parasite's life occurs in birds.

Looks like they are trying to do this to mice too...

Parasite manipulation of the proximate mechanisms that mediate social behavior in vertebrates.

Paul MacLean was instrumental in establishing the brain regions that mediate the expression of social behaviors in vertebrates. Pathogens can exploit these central mechanisms to alter host social behaviors, including aggressive, reproductive, and parental behaviors.

Here is what I found on the snails...

sgnis.org...

...perhaps people who jump to their death from a bridge to find a watery grave or drive there car off a dock or cliff into water are really infected by worms... hmmmm if not maybe a good episode for the x-files.

[edit on 8-9-2005 by GameSetMatch]

This is SO cool - please write an article loam! ...and this stuff just begs for a conspiracy theory...

I promise I'll vote yes.

how could evolution find such an obstructed path, my moms studies behavior science, neuro science... something like that, i sent a link to her university and i'm curiouse what she has to say. she's pretty freekin critical though, i hope she's slept well tonight this will be a whopper

Makes me wonder what goverments are using this natural phenomenon to experiment with mind control and influence in humans?......ever the extremist!

Originally posted by dazed and confused
how could evolution find such an obstructed path, my moms studies behavior science, neuro science... something like that, i sent a link to her university and i'm curiouse what she has to say. she's pretty freekin critical though, i hope she's slept well tonight this will be a whopper

Please let us know what she says.

Yes this is indeed amazing.

Perhaps it creates within the grasshopper an insatiable thirst. According to another poster mice are being tested with the agressive, etc behaviours. Could it be certain areas / proteins / hormones in the brain are being stimulated. Also could explain why some certain people are more prone to agressive, other behaviours than others.

- Nazgarn

Actualy there are a lot of parasites that affect other animals to do what is "good" for them.


There was just a special about the world's wierdest parasites on my local Vitaya TV channel, pretty interesting stuff.

For all we know, every human could house nano parasites inside him which control your every move... scary to say the least....

lots of cool info about it here


[edit on 8-9-2005 by XyZeR]

A parasite that causes behaviorial changes? WOW!
Do you all remember the post about the sheep jumping to their deaths?
This could be a biological weapon in the making. Imagine the population control the gov's could have. This parasite could be culture and then dispersed in our food for consumption where it travels to the brain creates havoc on our neurons and causes people to commit suicide. By the time this parasite made it's way into the brain there would be virtually no connection to the food consumption to the time of manifestation to death. Nobody would be the wiser outside of saying Hmmm- there sure have been alot of suicides lately.
However, what if it didn't work the same way it does in mice and grasshoppers? Our brain chemistry is different. What if instead of suicide it caused people to become mad and begin killing others instead?

I agree if anything it would make an awesome episode of X-Files if it were still on.

There is a parasite that works in just the same way within an ant.

Somehow the first stage of the parasite gets into an ant. The ant works all day, does not show any weird behaviour. But at night, when all other ants get into the anthill, the infested ant will climp a blade of grass and then he will cling himself to it. He waits there all night. When the sun comes up the farmer leads his sheep on to the meadow. Sheep like grass that is covered with dew, and in this way the infested ant gets eaten by the sheep. (if the ant doesn't get eaten he simply lets go of the blade of grass and carries on with his normal activity untill it's evening again. The ant repeats this patern untill he's eaten.)
Inside the sheep the parasite evolves into his next stage, he stays inside the sheep untill the sheep gets eaten by....US.
Inside our own bodies the parasite evolves into his last stage (adult stage) and stays in our intestines.

There are many parasites that use a 'host'-carrier before getting inside us, for example using fish, cows, sheep, cats,...

If you're ever pregnant, or if you know someone who's pregnant: STAY AWAY FROM CATS!!!!

This seems terrible news I think what with the new of the advent of parasites invading host's bodies and causing such feats of mind control.

Has anyone ever read the Irvine Welsh book, "Filth," that's about a rogue policeman who has a huge tapeworm that controls him in the lust for coke and sex.

What would you call that - parasite telemetry or what? It does sound like a job for Moulder and Scully, a potential for high grade nanobot mind control there I think, if you can get the genome of the parasites and somehow affect it. High tech Mad Scientist implications or what?

If you can mess around with the human genome and they seem to have broken the coda, then we maybe seeing and feeling major exciting times.

"In Silence There Is No Consent."

[edit on 10-9-2005 by castlesonair]

[edit on 10-9-2005 by castlesonair]

holy crud!!!

this is crazy...

i posted a few days ago that i would ask my mom about this, and she just email me a responce that was more clear than the "uh, maybe, well... no it must be", phone conversation we had on it. after reading it i realized i sent her the wrong link, i can't see how it wouldn't apply to grasshoppers though.


Explained by the paper, it is unknown how the parasite is able to do this
but they have found that the sensitivity to both gravity and movement in
response to light has been altered in the infected snails. As you
remember, I told you that snails do not 'think' per se but rather react
instinctively to their environment. Therefore, by altering the response to
either/or both gravity and movement to light, via an internal change in
the neuronal response to these environmental factors, the parasite is able
to change the snails instinctive reaction (behavior) and therefore better
its own chance of survival. You must also remember that the parasite is
NOT 'thinking' how it will accomplish this but rather its genetic makeup
increases the expression of certain proteins within the host snail that
will alter the hosts sensitivity to environmental factors. Through
Darwin's natural selection theory, we can assume that it also invaded
other hosts at one time but that those that invaded snails increased their
chance of survival by inadvertently changing the behavior of the host and
thus the snail became the prime host for future generations of this
parasite. I hope that I have been more successful in explaining this to
you than I was on the phone. After reading the abstract from the paper it
was much easier to understand what was going on.

There's also another parasite that infects ants, causes them to climb to the top of blades of grass and clamp on with their pinchers, so that they can be eaten by cows and other grazers, where the life cycle continues. When the midday sun is high and hot, the parasite relinquishes control, so as to avoid death, only to regain it when conditions permit.

There's also a parasite of fish that gives them a tick, so that they are just that much more visible to the predatory birds, who are also the next host.

And then there's sacculinum (or some such). This parasite infects male crabs by attaching to their shells and 'injecting' their insides into the crab. they grow and rammify throughout the crab. They castrate them, chemically. They even make the crabs feminize, they develope 'brood pouches' and engage in brooding behaviour, which female crabs do to protect and disperse their eggs. Only these feminized males are dispersing more sacculinum.

castleonair
Has anyone ever read the Irvine Welsh book, "Filth," that's about a rogue policeman who has a huge tapeworm that controls him in the lust for coke and sex.

That book was awesome. These things are called, as someone pointed out, parasitic behaviour modification. There are a very large number of examples, its pretty stunning.

edit to add
And yes, its been theorized that there are things like this that effect humans, like diseases that encourage disease spreading behaviour, etc.

[edit on 14-9-2005 by Nygdan]

I can't stand horsehair worms! The first time I saw them, I thought I was hallucinating. I was standing outside, and looking at a flowerbed, and the mulch I put down last fall was very very dark. I saw what looked like a long, white hair, and it caught my attention (why would I have a long white hair in my flowerbed?) when I thought it was moving. I leaned in, and couldn't make out what was going on- I had sweetpeas growing, and thoguht at first that I was actually seeing the sweetpea tendrils moving and looking for support, but then I realised, to my growing horror that it was alive, and squirming! Yuck! Freaking horrible nasty things! I looked it up then, and read about the gordian worms, and their evil ways. I just hope they don't happen again next spring- there were so many, and they were so so so creepy.

Mind Control by Parasites in Rats

Half of the world's human population is infected with Toxoplasma, parasites in the body—and the brain. Remember that.

Toxoplasma gondii is a common parasite found in the guts of cats; it sheds eggs that are picked up by rats and other animals that are eaten by cats. Toxoplasma forms cysts in the bodies of the intermediate rat hosts, including in the brain...

Oxford scientists discovered that the minds of the infected rats have been subtly altered. In a series of experiments, they demonstrated that healthy rats will prudently avoid areas that have been doused with cat urine. In fact, when scientists test anti-anxiety drugs on rats, they use a whiff of cat urine to induce neurochemical panic.

However, it turns out that Toxoplasma-ridden rats show no such reaction. In fact, some of the infected rats actually seek out the cat urine-marked areas again and again. The parasite alters the mind (and thus the behavior) of the rat for its own benefit.

If the parasite can alter rat behavior, does it have any effect on humans?

Now this really is something!

Is that why some people actually love cats?

On a more serious note, I wonder how many mental illnesses are pathogen based?

[edit on 11-2-2006 by loam]

Originally posted by loam

Parasites brainwash grasshoppers into death dive

...the eventual hope is that understanding how parasites manipulate their hosts’ behaviour – by affecting the nervous and endocrine systems – might further the understanding of how human behaviour-systems link.

Aside from being absolutely fascinating....this has real spooky implications.

....like the government sponsored researchers trying the understand how they can get millions of people to do the same thing? sounds to me like they would take that route. I think that is what you are getting at, Loam?