Authors: Pandey Nitesh Vinodbhai
Parasites often alter the behavior of their host to facilitate transmission. Sexually transmitted infections in humans may offer an opportunity to explore this area further as the causative agents are under rigorous selection pressure to evolve traits like that of host sexual behavior manipulation. Very recently sexually transmitted pathogens like HIV and Herpes simplex have been speculated to induce similar changes in the human host. HPV which is leading cause of cervical cancers and that of genitals may be the one of the best candidates to study such manipulations in humans. Limited modes of transmission and cultural constraints in orthodox societies where sexuality is still a taboo may put the virus under immense selection pressure to manipulate the host sexual behavior and large number of available mutational variants within the host may actually support the entire process. HPV spreading through Oral sex recently been confirmed as the major culprit for rising Oral Cancer cases in Western World. HPV has been also linked to breast and prostate Cancer. HPV has evolved to infect even neurons as it has been detected in majority of Retinoblastoma cases in India .Infection in brain provides with ample opportunity to manipulate neuronal circuits that may influence sexual behavior. Considering the versatility of HPV to colonize various sites in Human Body and most recently Human Brain I hypothesize that HPV can manipulate sexual behavior in Humans when the chances of transmission are very thin even in the entire lifetime of the host.
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[v1] 2013-01-31 03:37:46
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