Cats are raging littlelion - esque psychopaths , and for some clock time , it was intend that a common sponge that they tend to be infect with couldturn humanity a bit doolallytoo . A new discipline , however , has concluded that the “ crazy cat lady”-like syndrome is a myth , and there ’s no grounds to support it .

NamedToxoplasma gondii , this micro - lusus naturae has been show to make mice more suicidal , causing them to attempt out cat urine so as to get kill by our feline companions , which in act allows them to be infect . Cats are the only hosts in which the parasite is able to reproduce , so they have evolve thinker - control mechanism to assure they squirm their way inside them .

Although infected humans   – who enamour the little beasties via ingested khat after part particles   – have never been shown to of a sudden have a prevalence for their peculiar favourite ’s pee , there has been some circumstantial grounds as of belated that cat owner are likely to suffer from mental sickness , including dementia praecox , in later life .

Up to 60 million US grownup are infect withT. gondii , and although it can very rarely cause physical harm , there has never been any experimental trial impression that the sponger touch on our neurologic workings in any fashion . Nevertheless , the statistical association between cat owning and psychological affliction remained , hovering in the background like an unsolved closed book .

This new piece of inquiry , publish in the journalPsychological Medicine , submit another flavour at this bizarre correlativity . The team from University College London looked at the sprightliness of 4,500 kids from parentage to the time they turned 18 , and calculate at their genial wellness and whether or not their house had cats in it .

finally , they could findno correlationbetween genial illnesses and cat ownership whatsoever when taking into bill all potential factors – socioeconomic background , extra pets other than quat , numeral of mob members , marital position , fry sexuality , educational background , ethnicity , and so on .

It appear that deal of former studies miscarry to take many of these other variables into account . Additionally , unlike this team’slongitudinal cogitation – which repeatedly take the children throughout their living about their mental health – other studies tended to question their subjects just once and ask them to recall their genial state from several years back .

These two key factors are likely to have bias the resultant of field that appeared to show there was a correlation between genial problem and cat ownership .

“ Pregnant women should continue to avoid handling unclean true cat litter , given possible T. gondii photo , ” the squad cautiously close in their study . However , their data “ strongly indicates that kat possession in pregnancy or early puerility does not confer an increase risk of later adolescent psychotic experience . ”

Myth busted .

[ H / T : Popular Science ]