My cats drive me nuts!

The text used in my college survey course in psychology included a series of amazing paintings by Louis Wain, an early twentieth century painter afflicted with schizophrenia. Wain's paintings of cats became increasingly abstract and even frightening over time, as his symptoms worsened. My psych text offered the paintings, presumably, as an illustration of how the mental illness may affect the perceptions of its victim.

I found the paintings interesting for that reason, as well as aesthetically pleasing, and I've had them posted on this blog's sidebar almost since its inception. (I've always expected someone to ask some pointed questions about why I seemed so interested in madness, but, of course, no one ever did.)

It never occurred to me that the subject matter of the paintings -- cats -- had any relation to Wain's mental illness. Not until today, when I read an article in this month's Atlantic.¹

If you spend much time around your cat's litter box, you've probably been exposed to a parasite found in cat feces called Toxoplasma gondii. T. gondii can be found in about 20 percent of Americans, and is known to be a health hazard to people with weakened immune systems. In healthy individuals, however, it causes at most mild flu symptoms before the parasite is overcome by the body's defenses and ends up dormant in the brain. This has been scientists' common understanding for many years.

But a Czech scientist named Jaroslav Flegr has discovered evidence that the parasite, rather than being dormant, works silently in the brain, rewiring connections in a way that affects the host's behavior. The purpose of this rewiring is to make the usual post-feline hosts, rats and mice, act in a way that will result in their being easily killed and eaten by another cat. For example, the "rewired" rodent becomes sexually attracted to the odor of cat urine, a response called "fatal feline attraction." When the cat eats the rodent, it also ingests the T. gondii that infects the rodent. The parasite finds itself cozily back in a feline environment, which happens to be the only environment in which it can reproduce. T. gondii has no interest in humans as such, and any effect by the parasite on human behavior would be inadvertent from an evolutionary standpoint.

But such behavioral effects do exist, Flegr has shown. For most of us, the effects are minor. Infected males, for example, tend statistically to become a bit more introverted, suspicious, uncaring about others' feelings, and inclined to ignore rules. (No, I'm not going to try drawing political conclusions!). But for persons who are genetically so inclined, Flegr believes, the parasite may also trigger the onset of schizophrenia.

Interestingly enough, so far as we know schizophrenia did not seem to exist until the late 1700's -- which is also the time when large numbers of urban Europeans began keeping cats as pets. And recent studies have shown that schizophrenia is two to three times as prevalent in persons infected with T. gondii parasites as in those who are not.

My cats and I watch each other, as we always have, with mutual curiosity. My own curiosity, however, is now tinged with surges of suspicion. Are my furry friends responsible for those psychedelic nightmares I seem to have at times? Do they explain the voices outside my window -- the ones just barely intelligible, but who seem to utter my name with contempt? I shudder. I feel increasingly introverted, as I regard Loki and Muldoon with a newly critical eye -- and with less concern for their own feline feelings than in the past.

The article does have reassuring things to say, I have to add, and I recommend its perusal to my own readership. I certainly suggest you read it before you drown your own cats, or before signing yourself into a mental hospital.

Still, one might as well be prudent ....
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¹ Kathleen McAuliffe, "How Your Cat is Making You Crazy" (The Atlantic, March 2012)