ATCV-1- Stupidity Virus?

ATCV-1- Stupidity Virus?
ATCV- 1  (Acanthocystis turfacea chlorella virus 1)
Family- Phycodnaviridae
  • Chloroviruses are large DNA viruses known to infect certain eukaryotic green algae and have not been previously shown to infect humans or to be part of the human virome.
  • But certain sequences homologous to the chlorovirus in a metagenomic analysis of DNA extracted from human oropharyngeal samples.
  • The virus also seems to infect the mice and slow down certain brain activities.
  • American scientists have stated that it attacks human DNA, which may cause those infected to be less intelligent, impairing brain activity, learning and memory making stupid.

ATCV-1 | Stupidity Virus?

Research

  • ATCV-1 typically infects a species of green algae found in lakes and rivers, and has not previously known to infect humans. However, when Yolken’s team screened a group of 92 healthy volunteers who were taking part in a study on cognitive function, the virus was found to be present in 43.5% of them.
  • According to the study, the infection caused due to virus led to 10% poor performance on tests analysing visual processing speeds.
  • In one test, infected volunteers were slower to draw a line connecting a sequence of numbers randomly distributed on a page than their uninfected counterparts.
  • The researchers found that the presence of the virus was linked to lower attention spans and decreased spatial awareness, and a “statistically significant decrease in the performance on cognitive assessments of visual processing and visual-motor speed”.
  • Researchers found no connection between slower brain function and variables such as differences in sex, education level, income, race, and even cigarette smoking
  • Hippocampus Gene Expression in ATCV-1–exposed Mice were taken and compared to 26 wk after ATCV-1 exposure.
  • The hippocampus is a part that contains pathways essential for learning, memory, and behaviour and thus it was chosen.
  • Exposure to ATCV-1 was associated with a significant up-regulation or downregulation of 1,285 individual genes which could be constructed into 34 functional pathways that met the inclusion
    criteria.
  • Pathways with multiple components relevant to the response of the mice to ATCV-1 exposure and the development of cognitive changes following infection include pathways related to
    dopamine receptor signalling, cyclin-dependent kinase 5 (CDK5) signalling, antigen presentation, immune cell adhesion and eukaryotic initiation factor 2 (EIF2) with the colour-coding legend.

References

  1. https://www.pnas.org/content/111/45/16106
  2. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/10/algal-virus-found-humans-slows-brain-activity