This Is Your Brain on Parasites Audiobook By Kathleen McAuliffe cover art

This Is Your Brain on Parasites

How Tiny Creatures Manipulate Our Behavior and Shape Society

Preview

Get this deal Try for $0.00
Offer ends January 21, 2025 at 11:59PM ET.
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

This Is Your Brain on Parasites

By: Kathleen McAuliffe
Narrated by: Nicol Zanzarella
Get this deal Try for $0.00

$14.95/mo. after 3 months. Offer ends January 21, 2025 11:59PM ET. Cancel anytime.

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $19.95

Buy for $19.95

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

A riveting investigation of the myriad ways that parasites control how other creatures - including humans - think, feel, and act.

These tiny organisms can live only inside another animal, and, as McAuliffe reveals, they have many evolutionary motives for manipulating their host's behavior. Far more often than appreciated, these puppeteers orchestrate the interplay between predator and prey. With astonishing precision, parasites can coax rats to approach cats, spiders to transform the patterns of their webs, and fish to draw the attention of birds that then swoop down to feast on them.

We humans are hardly immune to the profound influence of parasites. Organisms we pick up from our own pets are strongly suspected of changing our personality traits and contributing to recklessness, impulsivity - even suicide. Microbes in our gut affect our emotions and the very wiring of our brains. Germs that cause colds and flu may alter our behavior even before symptoms become apparent.

Parasites influence our species on the cultural level, too. As McAuliffe documents, a subconscious fear of contagion impacts virtually every aspect of our lives, from our sexual attractions and social circles to our morals and political views. Drawing on a huge body of research, she argues that our dread of contamination is an evolved defense against parasites - and a double-edged sword. The horror and revulsion we feel when we come in contact with people who appear diseased or dirty helped pave the way for civilization but may also be the basis for major divisions in societies that persist to this day.

In the tradition of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel and Neil Shubin's Your Inner Fish, This Is Your Brain on Parasites is both a journey into cutting-edge science and a revelatory examination of what it means to be human.

©2016 Kathleen McAuliffe (P)2016 Audible, Inc.
Anthropology Biology Mental Health Psychology Human Brain Thought-Provoking Suspenseful

What listeners say about This Is Your Brain on Parasites

Highly rated for:

Fascinating Premise Intriguing Theories Pleasant Narrator Mind-boggling Anecdotes Thought-provoking Ideas
Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    645
  • 4 Stars
    307
  • 3 Stars
    120
  • 2 Stars
    31
  • 1 Stars
    13
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    623
  • 4 Stars
    248
  • 3 Stars
    90
  • 2 Stars
    18
  • 1 Stars
    12
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    569
  • 4 Stars
    264
  • 3 Stars
    117
  • 2 Stars
    25
  • 1 Stars
    14

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Entertaining but questionable studies

What would have made This Is Your Brain on Parasites better?

Less reliance on unrepeated or unrepeatable studies and more focus on those with more substantial evidence for, OR at least disclaimers when using some studies as being more fringe.

Would you ever listen to anything by Kathleen McAuliffe again?

Maybe

Which character – as performed by Nicol Zanzarella – was your favorite?

NA

What character would you cut from This Is Your Brain on Parasites?

NA

Any additional comments?

This is an entertaining and interesting book, but readers need to recognize it is a mash up of scientifically accepted and experimentally verified phenomenon and several observations or theories that might not prove to be true but they are all presented in a way that gives them equal weight. Reader beware

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

119 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent book

This book was so good that I listened almost non-stop! I highly recommend it. It made me think differently.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

great read

most interesting book I have read all year, I think she gives religious beliefs to much credit. I would of liked her to talk a little about the negatives like the Catholic ban on condoms rather than just picking only good thing like washing yourself before prayer.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating

Totally enthralling! I couldn't put it down. Interesting social & psychological implications.

Definitely worth reading .

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Potentials for Better Understanding of Behavior

This is such an interesting read. I almost went into Parasitology when I graduated with a Biology degree. I knew some of these strange things but not others. A must read for anyone wanting insight into behavior.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Lots of food for thought....

My husband and I listened to this book on a long trip , Cross-country trip and we both agree it is amazing. The ideas and science behind the theories are fascinating and the narrator does a great job of keeping the topic interesting.

Well done in every aspect.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Incredible book!

Kathleen has opened my eyes to a different way of looking at the world. The premise of our minds being so affected by parasites that our personality and social perspective can be different depending on where we live and the parasites we’re exposed to is fascinating. I read the book in 2016 but didn’t retain enough. I’m so glad I listened to it and may go back to the book again. We should all read this.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

An amazing treatise on the myriad ways of parasites

I had started this book several times but seldom got past the first chapter. As a Christian I had issues with the constant reference to evolutionary biology. However, after I resolved not to let that word bother me, I found the book unusually insightful. Indeed, I learned things that had never occurred to me regarding the relationship between the parasitic organism and the particular host.

To my Christian brethren, let me say that while I strongly regard evolution theory as utter foolishness, it can be profitable to ignore that nonsense and glean knowledge that would otherwise remain obscure if we simply reject out of hand any work containing references to evolution. Brethren, we can and should learn wonderful things about our world while keeping the faith that guards our hearts from deception. Consider this in prayerful meditation.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

First half is great 2nd half is a weird rant

The first half of this book, the only part actually about parasites and their effects is wonderful and worth the sales price, the 2nd half of this book is a meandering rant about how having a normal human disgust response makes you a bigot.
The only reason it was worth listening to is because, I'm assuming unbeknownst to the author, she makes a rather good argument that the further you remove man from the struggle of man v nature the less collectivist people become and thus the less capable they are of functioning within a civilization since at it's heart civilization is just a trade of social permissiveness for the capacity to advance technologically/philosophically.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

very interesting

I found the interactions between disease, parasites and the emotional immune system to be thought provoking and insightful.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful