Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s disclosure that a physician apparently found a lifeless worm in his mind has sparked questions on what mind parasites are, the injury they will trigger and the way, precisely, they get there.
How do parasites flip up in individuals? And what can they do to the mind?
Brain parasites embody way over worms. There are “legions” of organisms that may have an effect on the mind, mentioned Scott Gardner, a professor of organic sciences on the College of Nebraska-Lincoln who makes a speciality of parasites. Along with worms, widespread mind parasites embrace single-celled organisms comparable to Toxoplasma gondii and a few amoeba.
The injury varies relying on the kind of parasite and the place it results in the mind. “A few of them actively invade the tissues and destroy tissues,” mentioned Dr. Daniel Pastula, chief of neuro-infectious illnesses and world neurology at College of Colorado Medication. Others trigger issues due to the inflammatory response that they set off.
Tapeworms
People are sometimes uncovered to tapeworms by uncooked or undercooked meals or by meals contaminated with feces.
“A number of these items are transmitted to people by feces,” mentioned Dr. Edith L. Graham, a neurologist at Northwestern Medication.
Doctors consulted by The New York Times speculated that Mr. Kennedy described signs of an an infection with larvae from the pork tapeworm, Taenia solium, considered one of a number of kinds of tapeworm that may infect the mind. When an individual by chance swallows pork tapeworm eggs, the eggs hatch within the intestines, and the larvae can journey to different organs, together with the mind. There, they type cysts, inflicting a situation often called neurocysticercosis.
