A photo from open sources
Rotting flesh, shuffling gait, chilling moans – no zombies hard to recognize at first sight even among the most terrible monsters at halloween party. But if zombies existed, what would have to happen inside their brain? Based fictional descriptions of strange undead behavior, neurologists Wojtek Bradley from the University of California and Tim Verstunen from the University Carnegie Mellon (both avid zombie lovers), decided to spend their study.
Zombie Diagnostics
Based on the classics of cinema, zombies come in two forms: slow and fast. Slow zombies move inconsistently and cannot even guess to open the door, so we can assume that this species has serious problems with the work of the cerebellum. Cerebellum – the area at the back of the head, known as the “little brain”, it plays an important role in coordination of movements. Fast zombies have very poor memory, which prevents them from planning, develop strategies and acquire social skills. Besides Moreover, they lack cognitive control, which indicates obvious problems with the frontal lobes of the brain. In addition, fast zombies must the bundle of connections between the temporal and parietal lobes of the brain is damaged. However, there are advantages to the zombie brain – for example, acute sense of smell, able to smell human flesh on a rather large distance. For comparison, many healthy people cannot boast of a wonderful sense of smell. Although studies have shown that people can track aromas perfectly if they are completely focused on this task.
Are zombies real?
Can zombies exist in real life? Zombie concept rooted in Haitian secret knowledge (voodoo cult). Magicians voodoo make a powdery substance that is supposedly capable turn a person into a zombie. One of the components of this powder is a nerve toxin that can actually enter a person into state of suspended animation. In the animal world there are also zombie stories. For example, a fungus that infects carpenter ants, makes insects climb to the very tips tall grass and with all its strength clings to her jaws. Thereafter ants die, and the fungus germinates safely in the stem from the head of a zombie ant to spread as much as possible their debate and therefore infect other ants. Wasps injected paralyzing poison in cockroaches and then dragging their helpless little bodies in their nests to lay eggs inside their abdomen. When the larvae of wasps hatching, they eat living cockroaches from the inside. And of course you can not talk about toxoplasma, which can easily infect and people. For example, in rats this parasite suppresses fear before the smell of cat urine, which usually leads to death rodents. For pregnant women, toxoplasmosis infection is especially It is dangerous, as it can cause congenital problems in a child: deafness, mental retardation.
