The Relation ofToxoplasmaInfection and Sexual Attraction to Fear, Danger, Pain, and Submissiveness

Abstract

Behavioral patterns, including sexual behavioral patterns, are usually understood as biological adaptations increasing the fitness of their carriers. Many parasites, so-called manipulators, are known to induce changes in the behavior of their hosts to increase their own fitness. Such changes are also induced by a parasite of cats, Toxoplasma gondii. The most remarkable change is the fatal attraction phenomenon, the switch of infected mice's and rat's native fear of the smell of cats toward an attraction to this smell. The stimuli that activate fear-related circuits in healthy rodents start to also activate sex-related circuits in the infected animals. An analogy of the fatal attraction phenomenon has also been observed in infected humans. Therefore, we tried to test a hypothesis that sexual arousal by fear-, violence-, and danger-related stimuli occurs more frequently in Toxoplasma-infected subjects. A cross-sectional cohort study performed on 36,564 subjects (5,087 Toxoplasma free and 741 Toxoplasma infected) showed that infected and noninfected subjects differ in their sexual behavior, fantasies, and preferences when age, health, and the size of the place where they spent childhood were controlled (F(24, 3719) ¼ 2.800, p < .0001). In agreement with our a priori hypothesis, infected subjects are more often aroused by their own fear, danger, and sexual submission although they practice more conventional sexual activities than Toxoplasma-free subjects. We suggest that the later changes can be related to a decrease in the personality trait of novelty seeking in infected subjects, which is potentially a side effect of increased concentration of dopamine in their brain.

Negative Effects of Latent Toxoplasmosis on Mental Health

“…The data was originally collected for the purpose of another study (11). The subjects were invited to participate in the study using a Facebook-based snowball method (12) by advertisements published in various papers and electronic media, as well as TV and radio broadcasting.…”

“…The electronic survey consisted of 5 already published questionnaires studying various facets of human sexuality (11). The survey also contained an anamnestic questionnaire collecting various socioeconomic, demographic, health related, epidemiologic, and psychological data and three projective psychological tests.…”

The Effectiveness of Toxoplasma gondii Infection in the Emotions of Pregnant Women in Makkah, Saudi Arabia

“…The results of dimension 5 which concentrated on loss of interest in sex, showed that all the questions were with no relationship with the latent T. gondii (p >0.05). A recent study confirmed the reality of specific differences in desires, sexual behavior, and preferences between Toxoplasma-free and Toxoplasma-infected subjects (Flegr & Kuba 2016). Minor propensities for performance nonconventional sexual practices in the infected persons could be associated to their health status reduction .…”

Molecular Typing of Toxoplasma Gondii Isolated from Infertile Men and Its Effect on the Reproduction

“…On the other hand, many studies in the world and Iraq in particular, have shown that toxoplasmosis causes a recurrent abortion among pregnant women (4). With the progress of research in the fields of molecular biology it has been found that this parasite, which is transmitted through sexual contact causes serious complications (5). Recent studies conducted in the field of molecular biology has proven the transmission of the parasite through sexual contact leads to a new field of research about the parasite to infect the reproductive organs and causes proliferative device occurs great damage that cannot be cured (6).…”