Blanka Šebánková

• Mgr.
• PhD Student at Charles University in Prague

One-third of humanity harbors a lifelong infection with Toxoplasma gondii, and probably about 80% are infected with human cytomegalovirus (CMV). This study aims to delineate the associations between toxoplasmosis and cognitive abilities and compare these to the associations with CMV. We evaluated the cognitive performance of 557 students, who had b...

One-third of humanity harbors a lifelong infection with Toxoplasma gondii . This parasite undergoes sexual reproduction in cats and asexual reproduction in any warm-blooded intermediate hosts. The cycle progresses as cats ingest these hosts, containing the parasite’s tissue cysts. Such infections can alter behaviors in both animals and humans, pote...

Human populations, especially European, are polymorphic in the RHD gene. A significant fraction of their members carries two copies of a mutated (deleted) allele, which results in their Rh-negative blood type. Theoretically, this polymorphism should be unstable. Carriers of the less frequent allele are penalized by reduced fertility because of the...

Human populations, especially European, are polymorphic in the RHD gene. A significant fraction of their members carries two copies of a mutated (deleted) allele, which results in their Rh-negative blood type. Theoretically, this polymorphism should be unstable. Carriers of the less frequent allele are penalized by reduced fertility because of the...

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is the herpetic virus, which infects 45–100% of people worldwide. Many reports suggest that CMV could impair the cognitive functions of infected subjects. Here we searched for indices of effects of CMV on infected subjects’ intelligence and knowledge. The Intelligence Structure Test I S T 2000 R was used to compare the cogniti...

Human populations, especially European, are polymorphic in the RHD gene. A significant fraction of their members carry no copy of the coding section of RHD gene, which results in their Rh-negative blood type. Theoretically, this polymorphism should be unstable. Carriers of the less frequent allele are penalized by reduced fertility because of the i...

Human populations, especially European, are polymorphic in the RHD gene. A significant fraction of their members carries two copies of a mutated (deleted) allele, which results in their Rh-negative blood type. Theoretically, this polymorphism should be unstable. Carriers of the less frequent allele are penalized by reduced fertility because of the...

Background Toxoplasma, a protozoan parasite of cats, infects many species of intermediate and paratenic hosts, including about one-third of humans worldwide. After a short phase of acute infection, the tissue cysts containing slowly dividing bradyzoites are formed in various organs and toxoplasmosis proceeds spontaneously in its latent form. In imm...

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is the herpetic virus, which infects 45–100% people worldwide. Many reports suggest that CMV could impair cognitive functions of infected subjects. Here we searched for indices of effects of CMV on infected subjects’ intelligence and knowledge. The Intelligence Structure Test I-S-T 2000 R was used to compare IQ of 148 CMV-infe...

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is the herpetic virus, which infects 45 – 100% people worldwide. Many reports suggest that CMV could impair cognitive functions of infected subjects. Here we searched for indices of effects of CMV on infected subjects’ intelligence and knowledge. The Intelligence Structure Test I-S-T 2000 R was used to compare IQ of 148 CMV-in...

Toxoplasma , a protozoan parasite of cats, infects many species of intermediate and paratenic hosts, including about one-third of humans worldwide. After a short phase of acute infection, the tissue cysts containing slowly dividing bradyzoites are formed in various organs and toxoplasmosis proceeds spontaneously in its latent form. In immunocompete...

Latent toxoplasmosis is known to be associated with specific changes in animal and human behavior and human personality. Many toxoplasmosis-associated shifts, such as an extroversion-introversion shift or a trust-suspicion shift, go in opposite directions in men and women. The stress coping hypothesis suggests that such behavioral effects of toxopl...

Latent toxoplasmosis is known to be associated with specific changes in animal and human behavior and human personality. Many toxoplasmosis-associated shifts, such as an extroversion-introversion shift or a trust -suspicion shift, go in opposite directions in men and women. The stress coping hypothesis suggests that such behavioral effects of toxop...

Background: Past research linked Toxoplasma gondii (TG) infection in humans with neurological and mental disorders (e.g., schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease and attention disorders), irregularities of the dopaminergic and testosterone system, and increased likelihood of being involved in traffic accidents. Methodology/principal findings: We test...

Previous studies have considered facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) being sexually dimorphic trait as a result of testosterone’s influence on growth trajectories of facial features. However, this notion was recently challenged as studies based on several populations have shown no sex differences in fWHR and its relation to basal testosterone level...

Background: About 30% of people on Earth have latent toxoplasmosis. Infected subjects do not express any clinical symptoms, however, they carry dormant stages of parasite Toxoplasma for the rest of their life. This form of toxoplasmosis is mostly considered harmless, however, recent studies showed its specific effects on physiology, behaviour and...