Raw data for the study "Effects of latent toxoplasmosis and Rh factor on olfactory functions of men and women"

Abstract

The prevalence of infection with Toxoplasma is much higher in schizophrenia patients than in the general population. It is known that this parasite, which infects about one third of the world population, induces specific behavioral and personality changes in its animal and human hosts. It has been suggested that certain symptoms of schizophrenia, including changes in olfactory functions, are in fact symptoms of latent toxoplasmosis that can be easily detected in schizophrenia patients only due to the increased prevalence of toxoplasmosis in this population. Schizophrenia patients have impaired identification of odors and probably have lower sensitivity of odor detection. Here we searched for differences in olfactory functions between 62 infected and 61 noninfected non-schizophrenic subjects. When the potential confounding variables were controlled, infected men scored better in the standard odor-identification test. The Toxoplasma-infected women rated all smells as more intensive while the Toxoplasma-infected men rated nearly all smells as less intensive. Infected women rated the pleasantness of the smell of undiluted cat urine as higher than the non-infected women and the opposite was true for the men (the opposite direction shifts in men and women were described earlier for highly diluted cat urine). Toxoplasmosis had no effect on the rated pleasantness of the smell of jasmin, moschus, ambra, and zibet. Our results suggest that latent toxoplasmosis is associated with changes in the olfactory functions in humans; however, the observed changes qualitatively differ from those characteristic observed in schizophrenia patients.