It’s time to enjoy some monster stories, and the scariest monsters of all are those that actually exist.
Join us as we share tales of some of the creepiest parasites around — those that control the brains of their human hosts, sometimes leaving insanity and death in their wake. These are the tales of neurological parasites.
The Feline Parasite
Toxoplasma gondii tops the list as the most famous — and most controversial — neurological parasite. This tiny protozoan doesn’t look like much more than a blob, but once it makes its way to the brain, it can radically alter the behavior of hosts like rats, cats and, yes, even humans.
T. gondii’s life begins in cat feces, where its eggs (known as “oocytes” or “egg cells”) wait to be picked up by carriers like rats. Once they’re safe and warm in the guts of their temporary hosts, the oocytes morph into tachyzoites, the unassuming little blobs that can really do some damage. Those tachyzoites migrate into their hosts’ muscles, eyes and brains, where they can remain hidden for decades without doing much of anything.
