How would you feel if I told you that a virus could be responsible for depleting human intelligence? According to scientists at Johns Hopkins Medical School and the University of Nebraska, a virus that infects human brains could be making much of the population ‘stupid.’
It sounds a bit bizarre, but the scientists stumbled upon an algae virus never before observed in healthy people. The virus was found to affect cognitive functions including visual processing and spatial awareness by altering the gene expression of brain cells. So far, it has been found in about 45% of the 90 people tested.
While it was never found before in healthy individuals, the researchers have now found DNA in the throats of healthy people that matched the DNA of a virus known to infect green algae.
Dr Robert Yolken, a virologist who led the original study, said:
“This is a striking example showing that the ‘innocuous’ microorganisms we carry can affect behaviour and cognition. 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 harbour and the way they interact with our genes.”
The study abstract, found in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reads:
“Chloroviruses (family Phycodnaviridae) are large DNA viruses known to infect certain eukaryotic green algae and have not been previously shown to infect humans or to be part of the human virome. We unexpectedly found sequences homologous to the chlorovirus Acanthocystis turfacea chlorella virus 1 (ATCV-1) in a metagenomic analysis of DNA extracted from human oropharyngeal samples.
…The inoculation of ATCV-1 into the intestinal tract of 9–11-wk-old mice resulted in a subsequent decrease in performance in several cognitive domains, including ones involving recognition memory and sensory-motor gating. ATCV-1 exposure in mice also resulted in the altered expression of genes within the hippocampus. These genes comprised pathways related to synaptic plasticity, learning, memory formation, and the immune response to viral exposure.”
In February of 2013, I wrote a piece about how despite our advancements over the last tens or even hundreds of years, some ‘experts’ believe that humans are losing cognitive capabilities and becoming more emotionally unstable. That is to say, human intelligence is slowly declining. One Stanford University researcher and geneticist, Dr. Gerald Crabtree, believes that our intellectual decline as a race has much to do with adverse genetic mutations.
In that same piece, I reveal a number of other factors that could be depleting brain power. Check it out above.
Could the recent discovery of this human-infecting ‘stupid’ virus have to do with the slow decline in human intelligence? Or, do you think we’re actually getting smarter?
That might be what’s infecting Republicans and turning them into ” planet- destroying, infinite-game players” on a finite planet.
Like Democrats are any better.
The fact that a plant virus that before could not infect humans is now active attacking human DNA demonstrate’s how GMO foods have altered the human DNA to the point that we are now succeptable to plant diseases. Thank you duuuuuhhh Monsanto. Now the term dumb as a plank of wood is actually acurate.
Sounds like an epidemic…
No, people are not getting smarter. They mistake technology for ‘advancement of mankind’ as a species. No, people are getting stupider.
‘When a true genius appears, you can tell him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.” ~ Jonathan Swift
There is no such thing. I have now lost respect for this website
These symptoms are quite striking in that try are characteristic of people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), I wonder if there is a connection between this virus and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). An early symptom of this medical condition is a chronic sore throat. Recent research has led to the discovery of abnormal cytokine activity in the brain of people with CFS but not control subjects. [A new name is being considered for this disease. I vote for Chronic Immune Chaos.] It may be something worth looking into since research thus far has not been successful in uncovering a causal agent for the disease.