We review recent work testing the hypothesis that the parasite Toxoplasma gondii manipulates one of its intermediate hosts to make it behave in a way that would enhance the parasite's chance of completing its own life cycle.Both experimental and inferential evidence from wild rats and/or captive rats in semi-naturalistic environments suggest that infected rats differed from non-infected individuals in a suite of behaviours that may enhance their likelihood of being predated by cats, the parasite's definitive host: . gomfti-infected rats were found to be more active, more exploratory, less cautious of novel stimuli and more easily trapped.Also in accordance with the manipulation hypothesis, these alterations appear specific rather than due to the symptoms of some general illness. There were no differences in food intake, condition indices, other parasite load or growth rates. Moreover, infected rats did as well as non-infected individuals in terms of social status and mating success, both the products of costly and competitive activities which would be expected to be changed if the alterations were general rather than specific.Resume. -Nous exposons le bilan de travaux recents testant 1'hypothese selon laquelle le parasite Toxoplasma gondii modifierait le comportement d'un de ses notes intermediates de maniere ä faciliter sä propre transmission, augmentant ainsi ses chances de boucler son cycle de vie.Les resultats correlationnels et experimentaux suggerent que les rats infectes development un ensemble de comportements qui different de ceux des rats non-infectes et qui augmenteraient leurs chances d'etre captures par les chats, notes definitifs du parasite. Ainsi les rats infectes s'averent plus actifs, plus curieux et moins precautionneux vis-a-vis de nouveaux stimuli, et plus facilement pieges.Egalement en accord avec 1'hypothese de la modification du comportement de l'höte par le parasite, ces alterations semblent specifiques plutot que liees a une affection generate. II n'y a pas de differences apparentes en besoins alimentaires, condition physique, autres charges parasitaires et taux de croissance. Enfin, les individus infectes ne different pas des non-infectes en ce qui concerne leur Statut social et leur succes de reproduction, qui sont le produit d'activites competitives et coüteuses en energie, dont on s'attendrait ä ce qu'elles soient alterees si se trouvait confronte ä un syndrome general plutot que specifique.
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