Yeah was joking more than anything. But I do know someone who fosters cats that actually is negative for toxo!

Depends on how clean you are when you scoop litter haha

Well toxo’s favorite place to reside is in your brain, sooo

Not super involved in the clinical side, but I think if you are at risk, so immunocompromised or pregnant, it’s pretty easy? Not sure if you’re not part of that group tbh

Oh haha sorry for the unnecessary explanation then

Lol not sure what oryctocantropy is, but the parasite can essentially infect any part of your body so an immunocompromised person who is untreated would develop a typical infection for whatever part of the body the parasite is in, so like pneumonia or meningitis. And this can worsen or involve other organs until it eventually becomes fatal.

It’s really cool! They can also infected any nucleated cell in your body and can infect any warm blooded animal. They are pretty incredible

No, antibiotics won’t clear the parasite in most cases. It has a quiescent form that it spends most of its time in that is almost untouchable. You can only target the active parasites that cause disease, so you can treat active infection, but the parasite is mostt with you for life

It’s not super well known, but it has been associated with schizophrenia and suicide. It’s also associated with being more likely to partake in risky behavior. Lots of interesting stuff, but definitely a lot of work is needed to fully understand.

That being said these are just associations. Almost a third of the human population has toxo, and obviously a third of humans don’t have schizophrenia. So not something to panic about if you are infected

Well if it evolves to become super pathogenic we’re fucked because it already infects like a third of the human population and is capable of infected any warm blooded animal

So I study toxo, basically there are two forms of the parasite, one that actively replicates and infects new cells and another that holes up in a bubble inside your cells and basically does nothing. There are drugs to kill the active form, but once any of the parasites shifts into its passive form it’s basically untouchable by your immune system or by medication. And by the time most people realize they’re infected (if they do at all) you would be well past this point.

The passive form will reactivate from time to time, if you’re healthy your immune system shuts it down very easily, but there are always other cysts containing passive parasite, so you never get rid of it. If you’re not healthy you can keep it in check with medicine. So absolutely treatable, but generally not curable.

I study toxo, although not the behavioral side of things but there are associations between infected humans and partaking in risky behavior. They’re not incredibly strong correlations or anything, but things like being more likely to be an entrepreneur, or even associations with schizophrenia. It’s pretty cool stuff

Well no, toxoplasmosis is incurable, you’re infected for life. It’s just that it doesn’t cause disease in most people.