This Is Your Brain on Parasites

How Tiny Creatures Manipulate Our Behavior and Shape Society

By: Kathleen McAuliffe

Narrated by: Nicol Zanzarella

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

These tiny organisms can live only inside another animal, and, as McAuliffe reveals, they have many evolutionary motives for manipulating their host's behavior. Far more often than appreciated, these puppeteers orchestrate the interplay between predator and prey. 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 the profound influence of parasites. Organisms we pick up from our own pets are strongly suspected of changing our personality traits and contributing to recklessness, impulsivity - even suicide. Microbes in our gut affect our emotions and the very wiring of our brains. Germs that cause colds and flu may alter our behavior even before symptoms become apparent.

Parasites influence our species on the cultural level, too. As McAuliffe documents, a subconscious fear of contagion impacts virtually every aspect of our lives, from our sexual attractions and social circles to our morals and political views. Drawing on a huge body of research, she argues that our dread of contamination is an evolved defense against parasites - and a double-edged sword. The horror and revulsion we 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.

In the tradition of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel and Neil Shubin's Your Inner Fish, 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.

©2016 Kathleen McAuliffe (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

I was hooked!

This book really gives you something to think about. I loved it. I found it fascinating.

very important book

this book can change the whole way that you view the world and how to treat disease. highly recommend it !

fascinating

Withut human guinea pigs, will we ever know for sure? Forget mapping my dna, what's in my gut???

Book Needs to Be Updated

This book needs to be updated since it was published in 2016, and as of the date I am writing this review, it is now 6 years old, the last two of which there was a world wide pandemic, which still is not completely over. Some of her assertions of what would happen in such a situation have been validated, others have not.

The problem I have with the book is not so much the scientific observations she has made, or the studies that she relates, but her assertions as to the implications of what that means for individuals and societies. I actually *want* to believe much of what she says, but the problem is the old "correlation is not causation" argument. Much of what she infers needs more studies to confirm.

So, I think the book still has merit as to opening a person's mind as to what "could be", but I think I would like more updated info before I buy into everything in the book.

A final note is that if you wish to read the book, be prepared that much of the first part of the book deals with parasitic behavior of insects and animals and it is quite a while before it progresses to human parasites. The biggest takeaway I have from it is that much more research needs to be done in this important field (and maybe it has since, as I said the book is 6 years old).

If you are a frequent radio lab listener, this book covers many of the same topics

It’s ok, interesting at points. I’m familiar with a lot of topics covered because there are episodes of Radiolab also covered. There is some additional and more recent info in the book, but not enough to make those topics and more engaging.

The narrator is a bit robotic.

The larger hypothesis of the book is mostly speculative, interesting, but speculative.

Overall, I would consider it a slightly above average popular science non fiction work. Not bad, not great, kind of middle of the road.

Good book, Ishe just gets a little carried away.

it was very eye opening. Though a bit over done or reactionary. I took it with a grain of salt.

The hidden enemy

Excellent research by the author
Excellent work by the narrator
I enjoyed this work overall! Good purchase

wow! so much though provoking information.

I didnt want this book to end. It is eye opening and made me want to learn more. I loved it!

Mind gut connection to a T

explained theories surrounding microbes , parasites and the human interaction with examples in great detail. Loved the expansion of knowledge in new directions in a field I felt I already knew so much.

Parasite Manipulation

This was a good story about how parasites control the lives of their hosts. It changes the old trope of parasite is just trying to survive and evade detection, to the new model of manipulation of hosts to do the work of the parasite. Some chapters were great, some O.K. Overall a good book.