This Is Your Brain on Parasites - by Kathleen McAuliffe (Paperback)

About the Book

A riveting investigation of the myriad ways that parasites control how creatures--including humans--act, feel, and think

Book Synopsis

"Engrossing ... [An] expedition through the hidden and sometimes horrifying microbial domain." --Wall Street Journal

"Fascinating--and full of the kind of factoids you can't wait to share." --Scientific American

Parasites can live only inside another animal and, as Kathleen McAuliffe reveals, these tiny organisms have many evolutionary motives for manipulating the behavior of their hosts. With astonishing precision, parasites can coax rats to approach cats, spiders to transform the patterns of their webs, and fish to draw the attention of birds that then swoop down to feast on them. We humans are hardly immune to their influence. Organisms we pick up from our own pets are strongly suspected of changing our personality traits and contributing to recklessness and impulsivity--even suicide. Germs that cause colds and the flu may alter our behavior even before symptoms become apparent.

Parasites influence our species on the cultural level, too. Drawing on a huge body of research, McAuliffe argues that our dread of contamination is an evolved defense against parasites. The horror and revulsion we are programmed to feel when we come in contact with people who appear diseased or dirty helped pave the way for civilization, but may also be the basis for major divisions in societies that persist to this day. This Is Your Brain on Parasites is both a journey into cutting-edge science and a revelatory examination of what it means to be human.

"If you've ever doubted the power of microbes to shape society and offer us a grander view of life, read on and find yourself duly impressed." --Heather Havrilesky, Bookforum

Review Quotes

"If you've ever doubted the power of microbes to shape society and offer us a grander view of life, read on and find yourself duly impressed."-BookForum "A fascinating account of an extraordinary suite of biological phenomena, only recently come to light and proving that given enough time and enough evolving species to work with, natural selection can accomplish almost anything." -Edward O. Wilson, Professor Emeritus, Harvard University, author of Consilience. "This book has all the elements of a crime thriller: violence, blood, gore, race and sex. But here the criminals are parasites. McAuliffe tells a vivid and sometimes horrifying tale of the hijackers that control our brains and our behaviour. In company with the best science writers, she shows us that reality can be way more interesting than fiction." -Valerie Curtis, Director of the Environmental Health Group of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and author of Don't Look, Don't Touch, Don't Eat "Be prepared to throw away all your preconceptions about the order of life. Humorous, inspiring and macabre--this is infectious reading in the tradition of giants like Robert S. Desowitz and Jared Diamond." -Michael A Huffman, associate professor, Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University "From start to finish, [McAuliffe] spins a consistently engrossing tale of invasive creatures that can alter your behavior and outlook, depress your cognitive functioning, and even make you more violent or sexually aggressive." -- Heather Havrilesky, Book Forum --

About the Author

KATHLEEN MCAULIFFE is a journalist whose work has appeared in The Best American Science and Nature Writing and more than a dozen national magazines, including Atlantic, Discover, the New York Times Magazine, and Smithsonian.