Review: This is Your Brain on Parasites

I listened to This is Your Brain on Parasites as an audible audio book because it was on sale. The book obviously covers parasites and their impact on society, but somehow also meanders into gut microbes (which I'm not sure would fall into the category), and digresses into that strange parasite that turns rats into cat loving creatures so that the microbe can complete its life-cycle in the cat's digestive system.

There's a ton of talk (literal in the audio book version) about similar behavioral modification on human beings by microbes or parasites, but unfortunately, it's only statistical evidence, not indicative of major behavioral change. The kind of behavioral change seen by certain victims of decompression illness, for instance, would be much more distinctive and severe than most of the parasites she talks about.

The book is long, meandering, but ultimately didn't tell me anything I didn't already know about. Pass on it.