What if we didn't always control our decisions? What happens when invisible organisms take control of our brains? Hypersexual cicadas drugged with psilocybin, zombified cockroaches that obey wasps, suicidal gammarids that swim towards the light... Nature is full of amazing cases in which microorganisms manipulate the behavior of their hosts to ensure their own survival. But what is most disturbing is to discover that humans are not safe from this manipulation either. Microbiologist Raúl Rivas documents how bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites alter our behavior, our emotions, and even our most basic instincts. Lyme disease and its links to violent behavior. Toxoplasma and its ability to modify personality. The rabies virus and the hallucinations it causes... Through extraordinary scientific cases -- some beautiful, others terrifying -- a hidden world emerges where tiny organisms wield enormous power over brains infinitely larger than themselves. Fungi that turn insects into spreaders of hallucinogenic spores, parasites that cause mice to actively seek out their predators, bacteria capable of altering our personality... Animals are just the beginning. Then comes the truly disturbing part: how our gut microbiota influences neurodegenerative diseases, how certain infections alter the human psyche, where the boundary between the biological and the mental lies.
