Dementia virus?
What does the algae virus do to our brain
Kirill Stasevich, Science and Life
Unlike many other viruses that have passed to humans from animals, the ATCV-1 virus came to us from algae. But so far, he has not been noticed in anything serious – except for a slight weakening of some brain functions.
It should not be surprising that some viruses (for example, the flu virus) can pass to humans from animals – from pigs, monkeys, etc. After all, both humans and pigs are mammals, and our cells have more than enough in common. But who really deserves to be surprised is the ATCV-1 virus (Acanthocystis turfacea Chlorella virus 1), which is believed to have come to us from freshwater green algae.
They found it in the human body a few years ago, but for a long time they could not decide how it got there: whether it infected a living person, or penetrated after death. But then Robert H. Yolken and his colleagues from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (USA) discovered that ATCV-1 lives in the throats of psychiatric patients. Researchers were looking for pathogens that can influence the development of neuropsychiatric diseases, so this algae virus was suspected of giving rise to some mental abnormalities.
ATCV-1 can be found not only in patients, but also in completely healthy people. However, when cognitive abilities were tested in almost a hundred healthy carriers of the virus, it turned out that 43% of them have slight deviations in visual abilities – infected with ATCV-1 performed 10% worse on visual tests. In addition, they could not keep their attention on something for as long as uninfected ones. It is worth emphasizing that we are not talking about a severe disorder of brain functions that could be qualified as a disease, but still deviations from the norm were still quite significant.
It seems that the head of the study, Professor James L. Van Etten from the University of Nebraska,
he is not at all afraid of infection with the "dementia virus" – VM.
But maybe the deviations were due to some other factors that coincided with the presence of the virus by 43%? To test this, the researchers infected mice with ATCV-1 (the fact that the infection was successful was checked by antibodies against ATCV-1 – if antibodies appeared, then the virus remained in the body). In an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Yolken et al., Chlorovirus ATCV-1 is part of the human oropharyngeal virome and is associated with changes in cognitive functions in humans and mice), the authors write that mice with the virus took longer to find a way out of the maze and spent less time examining a new object (which can be interpreted as an inability to hold attention). At the same time, some changes were found in the activity of almost 1,300 genes in the cells of the hippocampus responsible for memory and orientation in space in infected animals. Some of the genes controlled immune processes, while the reaction of neurons to the neurotransmitter dopamine depended on others. The virus itself was not found in the brain, but it could affect the brain indirectly, irritating the immune system.
As for people, it is not yet possible to say how much changes in cognitive functions affect human behavior and psyche in general. In addition, we recall that more than half of the participants in the experiment had the presence of the virus in the body did not affect the work of the brain in any way. Of course, the medical consequences of ATCV-1 will still be studied, but now the most interesting question is how a virus specializing in algae could suddenly penetrate into an animal cell?
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru30.10.2014