Researchers have found an algae virus in the throats of healthy humans that could alter visual processing and spatial orientation.
“This is a striking example showing that the ‘innocuous’ microorganisms we carry can affect behavior and cognition,” said lead investigator Dr. Robert Yolken, a virologist and pediatric infectious disease specialist at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and director of the Stanley Neurovirology Laboratory at Johns Hopkins. “Many physiological differences between person A and person B are encoded in the set of genes each inherits from parents, yet some of these differences are fueled by the various microorganisms we harbor and the way they interact with our genes.”
The team made the finding by accident when analyzing the microbes in the throats of healthy patients for a non-related study; they were shocked to find Acanthocystis turfacea Chlorella virus 1 (ATCV-10), which is known to infect green algae.
The team found 40 of the 92 study participants carried the virus and those that did had a lower level of performance on a set of tasks that measured the speed and accuracy of visual processing. They performed an average of nearly nine points lower on a task in which they were asked to draw a line between sequentially numbered circles than those who did not have the virus.
To further back up their findings the researchers infected a group of mice with the virus and found they had developed similar cognitive deficits.
The virus is believed to cause changes in the hippocampus, the region of the brain responsible for cataloguing short term and long term memories as well as spatial orientation.
[via Business Insider]