I’m researching all of this, and it seems cats are the main(?) host for T. gondii. And yet it can infect humans as well. As far as I know, it does (sometimes) virtually nothing except either maybe give you schizophrenia or make you a “Risk-taking Asshole” for lack of a better term. What is even the purpose of doing this to infected humans??? WHY??? What kind of parasite infects a human with the only real side effect of “I’m just gonna make you gamble a lot and give you road rage.”
Obviously there’s other, more serious side effects. But I truly don’t understand what its goals are once it comes into contact with humans. Are we just another body to them? A scenario of “Oh well im in this human now so… Guess I better get comfy or whatever.”
Keep in mind I’m aware the Parasite isn’t like a person, it doesn’t just “do stuff” the way we humans do. It can’t really think. My confusion stems from why it even bothers evolving just enough to be able to infect humans in the first place. Why doesn’t it just stick with cats? And when it does infect humans, why does it just- not do anything half the time? It’s like it only infects people Internally just to mildly inconvenience them.
Its targets are mice and cats, where the latter are their definite hosts. Infected mice become less careful and thus are more likely to be captured and eaten by cats. The cat eating an infected mouse becomes infected and thus the parasites can mate and reproduce.
We as humans, are sufficiently close to mice to become infected as intermediate hosts, but we are a dead end, as we usually don’t end up as our cat’s food.