Cats Drove Us Crazy!

I wrote earlier about dogs, but now I have to balance that with a story about cats.  According to this latest story, a microbial parasite found in cats leads to higher incidences of neuroticism, specifically guilt proneness, and schizophrenia.  Here's the money quote:

Infection by a Toxoplasma gondii could make some individuals more prone to some forms of neuroticism and could lead to differences among cultures if enough people are infected, says Kevin Lafferty, a U.S. Geological Survey scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

So, whole cultures could be more neurotic and schizophrenic depending on how exposed to cats they have been in the past?  Hmm... very interesting.  Unfortunately, the story does not say which cultures or populations were more, uh, impaired, than others, but we can only speculate.  However, now we know for sure that crazy cat ladies, really are crazy.