Behavioral Ecology Blog

Story..

“..infected women tend to be more outgoing, friendly, more promiscuous, and are considered more attractive to men compared with non-infected controls.”

The real interesting question is if this parasite induced change in human behavior is adaptive or incidental in nature. If its’ mode of transmission was either sexual or came as a result of close contact- the adaptive hypothesis would seem more likely.

Things like this- where animals behavior is modified to enhance parasite transmission is pretty well known, but this is the 1st example (that I know of) in humans… See here for some details

I have long contended that neuro-syphilis might do the same, but have not pursued this as of yet.

EDIT: From the ASM The capacity of infectious agents to affect behaviors is important but easily overlooked

Other examples (with video)
Snail:

WOW