Found: The viral infection that makes nearly HALF of us more stupid (and it lasts for YEARS)
The virus - called chlorovirus ATCV-1 - was previously only known to appear in green algae in freshwater lakes.
The researchers, from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the University of Nebraska, have not established how the virus comes to infect humans.
The algae virus, never before observed in healthy people, was found to affect cognitive functions including visual processing and spatial awareness.
Surprisingly, the researchers found DNA in the throats of healthy individuals 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 fuelled by the various microorganisms we harbour and the way they interact with our genes.”
It does not seem to have infected just swimmers or watersports fans, probably ruling out a link to algae itself.
Instead it could be that humans have long carried the virus, but it had not previously been looked for by doctors.
Study author Professor Robert Yolken, of Johns Hopkins medical school, said the millions of viruses living in the human body are being investigated by experts for the first time.
‘We’re really just starting to find out what some of these agents that we’re carrying around might actually do,’ he told the Healthline website.
‘It’s the beginning, I think, of another way of looking at infectious agents — not agents that come in and do a lot of damage and then leave, like Ebola virus or influenza virus.
‘This is kind of the other end of the spectrum. These are agents that we carry around for a long time and that may have subtle effects on our cognition and behaviour.’
The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that the ATCV-1 virus alters the genes in the brain.
The team found the virus in throat swabs from 40 out of 92 volunteers, and discovered those with the virus performed measurably worse in cognitive testing.
They then confirmed their findings in tests on mice. Giving the virus to mice resulted in a decrease in recognition memory and other brain functions, they found.
Tests showed the virus had broken through the barrier between blood and tissue, altering the activity of genes in the brains of the mice.
The genes affected including those producing dopamine - a vital hormone which influences memory, spatial awareness, emotion and pleasure.
Professor James Van Etten, a biologist from the University of Nebraska who first identified the virus in algae 30 years ago, said: ‘There’s more and more studies showing that microorganisms in your body have a bigger influence than anything anyone would have predicted, and this could be something along those lines.’
Professor Yolken added: ‘The thing that’s different about what we found is that chlorovirus ATCV-1 is something that we wouldn’t have suspected would actually have any effect on humans or animals.
‘It points us in a direction of looking to see if we can improve people’s cognition, their behaviour, by changing the composition of their microbiome [the balance of bacteria and viruses in the body].’
Humans’ bodies contain trillions of bacteria, viruses and fungi. Most are harmless, but the findings of this research show that there some microbes can have a detrimental impact on cognitive functions, while leaving individuals healthy.
The study’s findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Sources
More on microbes on this blog
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