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Why infest the loved ones – inherent human behaviour indicates former mutualism with head lice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2012

LAJOS RÓZSA  and
PÉTER APARI
LAJOS RÓZSA*
Affiliation:
MTA-ELTE-MTM Ecology Research Group, Budapest, Pazmany Str. 1, H-1117Hungary
PÉTER APARI
Affiliation:
Department of Plant Taxonomy and Ecology, Eotvos University, Budapest, Pazmany Str. 1, H-1117Hungary
*
*Corresponding author: MTA-ELTE-MTM Ecology Research Group, Budapest, Pazmany Str. 1, H-1117Hungary. Tel: +36 1306957185. E-mail: [email protected]
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Summary

Head lice transmit to new hosts when people lean their heads together. Humans frequently touch their heads to express friendship or love, while this behaviour is absent in apes. We hypothesize that this behaviour was adaptive because it enabled people to acquire head lice infestations as early as possible to provoke an immune response effective against both head lice and body lice throughout the subsequent periods of their life. This cross-immunity could provide some defence against the body-louse-borne lethal diseases like epidemic typhus, trench fever, relapsing fever and the classical plague. Thus the human ‘touching heads’ behaviour probably acts as an inherent and unconscious ‘vaccination’ against body lice to reduce the threat exposed by the pathogens they may transmit. Recently, the eradication of body-louse-borne diseases rendered the transmission of head lice a maladaptive, though still widespread, behaviour in developed societies.

Keywords

head licebody licefacultative mutualismhuman behaviourlouse-borne diseases
Type
Review Article
Information
Parasitology , Volume 139 , Issue 6 , May 2012 , pp. 696 - 700
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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