I was reading on Wikipedia about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

And there is a paragraph about a theory that OCD can be brought on by Strep-Throat...

From wikipedia
------------------
Stanford University School of Medicine OCD web page states that "although the causes of the disorder still elude us, the recent identification of children with OCD caused by an autoimmune response to Group A streptococcal infection promises to bring increased understanding of the disorder's pathogenesis."[4]

-------------------------------

This led me to wonder, what if Strep-Throat gets mutated once it invades a host, and as the assault takes place, could it possibly mutate into being more like the host.

Then when someone else catches the mutated strain of Strep-Throat... could the new host manifest the slight traits that the mutated Strep-Throat brings on?

Or is this just a completely rediculous idea?

I'm wondering because I've read some theorizing on how obesity could be contagious, and maybe it is contagious because when someone obese gets sick, then you get their sickness, some of their genes are transferring to you?

Sorry I'm not more scientific about this, but that particular paragraph from wikipedia really got my curiousity firing.

I'm wondering if groups of long-time friends become more physically similar to each other, the more they transfer
colds/viruses to each other now...

Well in these cases, the bugs are probably operating through direct brain-immune interactions, as a reaction to the infection. It is possible thatb perptides or neural infection by a pathogen can also modulate behavior, in a directed way.

Whilst viruses can transfer genes from one animal to another, that is not how the viruses in obesity and behavioral conditions are theorised to work.

Rather the virus may modulate behavior, metabolism, eating and inflammation. There are a number of intracellular parasites that can modulate host behavior such as by inducing risky behavior, and damage innate defenses and biorhythms through an immune damaging action, that could cause conditions like Bipolar.

I believe people who are dominant in social settings whether people chose to acknowledge it or not serve and register subconsciously as positive reinforcements of social behavior, hehe relatively speaking, we dont like no loud drunkz. And if there is a particular trait that person possesses and is attractive to the individual, the individual may personally want to integrate said behavior into their own behaviour subconsciously or to the rather clever in action, consciously.

Physically and psychologically, this often happens, but it doesn't need to be (almost certainly mostly isn't) a function of disease transfer. That's what I thought this thread would be about when I clicked on it. Metempsychosis.

Thats an interesting direction. I have noticed how I pick up the laugh of others.

absolutely. this is how you catch teh gay.

That's a psychological coping mechanism, not a physical one. It's much more fun to be laughing with than to be laughed at.

I think he means the style of laughter, which I notice as well, and not necessarily target/timing of laughter.

That's exactly what I meant. No need to overwork the psychoanalysis around here - and psycho-analysis is often used as a defense mechanism.

Cheers for being in reality dashforce! I've absorbed the laugh of my ex, which is really bizzare but it only happens when I am really laughing suddenly, such as when I'm surprised. Before that, I had the laugh of a school friend. When I'm chuckling, I recognise the laugh of another school friend.

It's all rather freaky, but matches what is being discovered about the roots of language - that is, that the genes for human language match those in birds, which is itself picked up in a mirror like fashion as song, and repeated with the characteristics of those its learned from.

One of the more bizarre things, my work friend has developed many of my manerisms and speech styles.

It's sometimes rather embarrasing actually.

One of the well known "cheats" for getting people to like you more quickly is miming their behavior slightly. (say, aping their body language while you are having a conversation)

Huh. Would be interesting if there was a link between that sort of thing and flocking behavior in birds.

Yes! I bet that it is, now you mention it.

It is supposed to have been shown that gesture and body language predate spoken language. That might be precisely the common link, and it may go as far back as fish or even further. Verbal language, gesture and context work together to create communicable information, and it goes far back down the animal tree to be sure. There might not be a very recent verbal development either - birds sughgust it predates modern mammals, but fish can navigate and communicater using there line of nerves that effectively represent a sound and gesture system. That might be the actual origin. Further back, towards invertebrates, visual communication using colour and gesture is recognised, and in many species, light is used. So it could be something common accross bilaterians and thereby have a very ancient origin.

i haven't delved into the research deeply enough yet, but i have a feeling mirror neurons are very much involved in the phenomena you've experienced and pointed out, ATB

Certainly.

What is kind of rewarding is that recently, we wrote somewhere that language is a mirror neuron system, and an article has just appeared in New Scientist showing that mirtror neurons in fact inhabit Brocas area, responsible for language in humans and birds song in animals - though I think this was really rather obvious and a safe prediction, it is suprising it doesn't seem to have been realised before. It is demonstrated that there are common processes in bird brains and in human language as well as in both bird and human sopeech defecit, a common gene polymorphism identified.

Since birds and humans share a common ancestor before the duck billed platypus, were probably talking well over 150 million years ago. Our rodent pre-ancestors, hairy high-metabolism, half reptilians, would have had the origins of human mirror neurons, social organisation and speech.

What we can then tie together is earlier writinfgs and research, in an avant or m&m thread, about music. What is music? Why does it make us dance?

Music is represented as body movemenst. Sounds in birds acrtivate body movement neurons. Sounds represent physical motions and states. The brain interprets through this the meaning of sounds made by others. Higher language is learnt by looking at peoples physical motions and states and using theory of mind, following gaze direction, and deciphering context, our brains filter down to a probably, internally recognizable situation for the other person.

Sounds are mapped by recognition onto this cognitive network.

Because some motions aere particularly pleasant, rhythmic combinations of sound are naturally desirable because they evoke these internal physical representations. Hence music, and attractive speech.

So birds, which have a stripped down version of this, sing. The singing conveys basic information, but allows networks of birds to remain orientated together and share eyes and senses.

Some birds can consume up to 40% of their energy singing.