And it turns out that toxo can mess with our brains, too.

事实证明，弓形虫也会扰乱我们的大脑。

Studies have found connections between toxo and schizophrenia, biopolar disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, and aggression.

研究发现弓形虫与精神分裂症、双相情感障碍、强迫症和攻击性行为之间存在联系。

And is toxo the reason so many people love cats and keep them as pets?

弓形虫是许多人喜爱猫并将它们当作宠物饲养的原因吗？

So is toxo manipulating our brains as an evolutionary strategy to get predatory cats to eat us?

那么，弓形虫操纵我们的大脑是否是一种让掠食性猫科动物吃掉我们的进化策略？

Thus, one idea is that toxo tinkers with neurotransmitters, the chemical signals that modulate emotions.

因此，一种想法是， 弓形虫会修补神经递质，即调节情绪的化学信号。

We can also get toxo from eating undercooked meat from other animals that picked up some oocysts.

我们还可以通过食用其他带有一些卵囊的未煮熟的肉来感染弓形虫。

Backyard surveys have found up to 400 Toxo oocysts per square foot. They can survive for more than a year and a half in the soil.

对后院的调查发现，每平方英尺的土地上大约有400个弓形虫卵囊。它们能在土壤中存活一年半的时间。

Although the exact mechanism isn't known, toxo appears to increase dopamine, a brain neurotransmitter that is involved in novelty-seeking behavior.

虽然确切的机制尚不清楚， 但弓形虫似乎会增加多巴胺，这是一种与寻求新奇行为有关的大脑神经递质。

To do that, toxo orchestrates a brain manipulation scheme involving cats, their rodent prey, and virtually all other birds and mammals, including humans.

为此，弓形虫精心策划了一项涉及猫、它们的啮齿动物猎物以及几乎所有其他鸟类和哺乳动物（包括人类）的大脑操纵计划。

But mice aren't the only animals that end up with these parasites, and that's where humans, and all of toxo's other hosts, come in.

但是老鼠并不是唯一最终感染这些寄生虫的动物，而这正是人类和弓形虫的所有其他宿主进来的地方。