Scientists Discover Link Between Cats & Schizophrenia

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Scientists Discover a Mysterious Link Between Cats & Schizophrenia

https://www.newsbreak.com/news/3400797633705-scientists-discover-mysterious-link-between-cats-and-schizophrenia?_f=app_share&s=a3&share_destination_id=MjUwMzkwODY4LTE3MTI5NzYxMjc0NjM%3D&pd=0Gwc6O8C&hl=en_US&send_time=1712976127&actBtn=null&trans_data=%7B%22platform%22%3A1%2C%22cv%22%3A%2223.46.1%22%2C%22languages%22%3A%22en%22%7D

The article leaves me wondering whether cats might be the effect rather than the cause.

Might people inclined toward schizophrenia be more inclined to get a cat?

I remember reading a profile a science professor at my old university when I was a student there in the Seventies...almost as an aside and as after thought he said he had a theory that "cat ownership causes schizophrenia".

Well...I guess someone finally got around to testing his hypothesis and found SOME correlations.

I think its a conspiracy by the U.S. kennel club!

I've loved cats all my life and I think whoever came up with the study is nothing but a total cat hater.

For most of my childhood and early teen years I couldn't own a cat because my mom is allergic. So why did I start having schizophrenia-like symptoms when I was around 12? And why were they gone by the time I did get a cat, which was when I was around 18?

The cat haters just want a justified reason for their outdated and ridiculous reasons for their bigotry.

I think there's a lot of academics out there who enjoy pushing their own agendas on the world.

I’ve met some cats like that.

I don't remember the specific details but I read an article about this a couple a years ago. I think it said some cats can have a parasite that they suspect cause schizophrenia if transfered to people.

My cat just told me this is nonsense.

you're forgiven. Lol!

A friend and fellow cat lover opined that thats part of how cats 'domesticate us' by putting out some chemical (or parasite) that influences our behavior.

I go with the theory that both animals trigger instincts in the other. Adult humans are the same size relative to an adult cat what a mom cat is to her kittens. And an adult cat is about the size of a human infant. So they trigger our parenting instincts and we remind THEM of their moms from way back. Trouble is we tend to flip them on their backs and craddle them like human babies (tom cats tolerate that crap, but not females for a moment) so we have to learn to let them curl up next to us (like they would against thier mommies).

^ That goes without saying that that was main reason. But I am saying that cats may had ways to reinforce (intensionally not a hold on us).

Dogs took up with us when we were cavemen and hunters several tens of thousands of years ago.

Cats took up with us later (but are still ancient) when we became farmers. Our surplus grain attract rodents. And the rodents attracted cats. And some cats found it advantages to feign affection for these rat magnent farmers.

North African wildcats took up with us first somewhere in or near Egypt maybe 8 thousand years ago.

They didnt become common outside of Egypt until Roman Times but then they spread the whole length of Eurasia-from the Atlantic east to beyond the Roman Empire to Japan and China. .

Am saying that in addition to that cats might have other tricks up their sleaves (tricks that other rodent predators like ferrets dont have to further get us).

In contrast (not that one animal pet is better than the other) dogs were already on every continent except antarctica. Australia was a semi exception. In Australia the Abos did not have domestic dogs as we know them, but Australia had a wild critter called the dingo that was clearly brought to Australia by early man that was a kind of intermediate in evolution frozen in time between wolves and domestic dogs.