{"id":8477,"date":"2014-11-12T09:56:40","date_gmt":"2014-11-12T15:56:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbadamslive.com\/?p=8477"},"modified":"2014-11-12T09:56:40","modified_gmt":"2014-11-12T15:56:40","slug":"has-the-stupid-virus-been-discovered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/barbadamslive.com\/?p=8477","title":{"rendered":"Has the “Stupid” Virus Been Discovered?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jokes aside, recent media reports are stating that there may actually be a \u201cstupid\u201d virus, and that scientists in the U.S. appear to have found it accidentally.<\/p>\n

At the center of attention is a study published in late October in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/em><\/a> (PNAS) by researchers at Johns Hopkins Medical School and the University of Nebraska.\u00a0 According to media reports<\/a>, scientists discovered \u201cA virus that infects human brains and makes us more stupid,\u201d and that scientists, \u201c\u2026stumbled upon the discovery when they were undertaking an unrelated study into throat microbes.\u201d<\/p>\n

So did these scientists actually discover a virus that makes us more \u201cstupid?\u201d\u00a0 In their original study, scientists at John Hopkins University found a virus known as chlorovirus ATCV-1 in the throats of 40 out of 90 people sampled.\u00a0 Initially this finding was of interest because this particular virus was previously known to infect only algae, not humans.\u00a0 Upon further testing, there appeared to be a correlation between the infection of ATCV-1 and subsequent performance on cognitive tests given to both humans and mice.<\/p>\n

Dr. Robert Yolken<\/a>, a virologist and lead investigator in the original study from John Hopkins, said \u201cThis is a striking example showing that the \u2018innocuous\u2019 microorganisms we carry can affect behavior and cognition.\u201d\u00a0 He also commented that \u201cMany 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 harbor and the way they interact with our genes.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Dr. David Sanders<\/a>, a Purdue University virologist and expert on Ebola, commented that \u201c\u2026he would need to see this replicated before he\u2019d believe the claim.\u201d\u00a0 He further noted that \u201c\u2026samples from the patients might have been contaminated with the algae virus,\u201d leading to possible wrongful links.\u00a0 In addition, Dr. Sanders questioned the peer review behind the paper in PNAS, stating \u201cSomething is wrong here\u2026I don\u2019t know how the experiments happened.\u00a0 This is a whole bunch of random data stitched together with little real basis for making any conclusions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The human body contains trillions of viruses, bacteria and fungi.\u00a0 Many are harmless, but this new study raises the possibility that some may have a detrimental effect, including on our cognitive functions.<\/p>\n

As the media continues to report that the \u201cstupid\u201d virus has been found, Dr. Sanders cautions that we must not jump to conclusions too quickly.\u00a0 He points out that while the scientists \u201c\u2026found statistically significant but very small differences on several of the tests\u2014including measures of visual information processing speed and attention,\u201d he \u201ccouldn\u2019t find the word \u2018stupid\u2019 in any form\u201d in the study, meaning those scientists never claimed to have found the \u201cstupid\u201d virus.<\/p>\n

While not ruling out that the ATCV-1 virus may be having deleterious effects on us, further studies involving larger sample sizes need to be conducted.\u00a0 Just as importantly, how did this virus make the jump from algae to humans and, if it does turn out to be \u201charmful,\u201d how do we protect ourselves from it?<\/p>\n

Regardless of the outcome, more research into how microorganisms affect us behaviorally and cognitively is warranted.\u00a0 At this point, we can\u2019t risk being \u201cstupid\u201d one way or the other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jokes aside, recent media reports are stating that there may actually be a \u201cstupid\u201d virus, and that scientists in the U.S. appear to have found it accidentally. At the center of attention is a study published in late October in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) by researchers at Johns Hopkins Medical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8477","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-articles","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbadamslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbadamslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbadamslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbadamslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbadamslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8477"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/barbadamslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8478,"href":"https:\/\/barbadamslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8477\/revisions\/8478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbadamslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbadamslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbadamslive.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}