Understanding the human body is a team effort. That's where the Yachtel group comes in.

Researchers at Yachtolt have been delving into the secrets of probiotics for 90 years.

Yacold also partners with nature portfolio to advance gut microbiome science through the global grants for gut health, an investigator-led research program.

To learn more about Yachtolt, visit yawcult.co.

.jp. That's y-A-K-U-L-T.C-O.J-P. When it comes to a guide for your gut, count on Yacolt.

This is Scientific Americans' 60-second science. I'm Karen Hopkin.

Parasites live on or even inside another organism, and some can even change the behavior of their host to boost the odds of their transmission.

Take the single-celled toxoplasma Gandhi. Mice infected with this bug appear to become attracted to the smell of cat pee,

an odor that uninfected mice smartly avoid. The infection thus raises the chances that a mouse

will wind up in a cat's mouth. Obviously bad news for the mouse, but good news for the parasite,

which needs a kitty to complete its life cycle and spread to additional hosts.

Devious indeed.

But it turns out this cunning scheme may be less precisely targeted than it initially appears.

Because a new study finds that toxoplasma doesn't specifically eliminate a mouse's natural aversion to cats.

Rather, the infection makes them generally less anxious and more adventurous, which makes them more curious about cats and pretty much everything else.

The work appears in the journal Cell Reports.

The story about toxoplasma Gandhi manipulating the behavior of its host is simply fascinating.

Biologist Yvonne Rodriguez of the University of Geneva, one of the study's senior authors.

It was particularly intriguing for us to understand how the parasite achieves a specific

alteration of the neural circuits

involved in the response towards feline predators, something that has never been elucidated.

So Rodriguez and his colleague set out to determine the molecular mechanisms that underlie this

...