Brain Eating Critters

It sounds like science fiction but it’s true: A killer amoeba living in lakes enters the body through the nose and attacks the brain where it feeds until you die. This is the so called brain eating amoeba in which u only can see them in the X files series.

Naegleria fowleri (also known as the brain eating amoeba) is a free living amoeba typically found in warm fresh water, from 25–35 degrees Celsius (77–95 degrees Fahrenheit) in an amoeboid or temporary flagellate stage. It belongs to a group called the Percolozoa or Heterolobosea.
N. fowleri can invade and attack the human nervous system; although this occurs rarely, such an infection will nearly always result in the death of the victim.

In humans, N. fowleri can invade the central nervous system via the nose, more specifically the olfactory mucosa and nasal tissues. The penetration initially results in significant necrosis of and hemorrhaging in the olfactory bulbs. From there, amoebae climb along olfactory nerve fibers through the floor of the cranium via the cribriform plate and into the brain. It then becomes pathogenic, causing primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM or PAME). PAM is a syndrome affecting the central nervous system, characterized by changes in olfactory perception (taste and smell), followed by vomiting, nausea, fever, headache, and the rapid onset of coma and death in two weeks.
PAM usually occurs in healthy children or young adults with no prior history of immune compromise who have recently been exposed to bodies of fresh water.
Amphotericin B is currently the most effective known pharmacologic treatment for N. fowleri, but the prognosis remains bleak for those that contract PAM, as only eight patients have survived (3% survival rate) in a clinical setting. Timely diagnosis remains a very significant impediment to the successful treatment of infection, as most cases have only been appreciated post-mortem.

Detection: N. fowleri can be grown in several kinds of liquid axenic media or on non-nutrient agar plates coated with bacteria. Detection in water is performed by centrifuging a water sample with Escherichia coli added, and then applying the pellet to a non-nutrient agar plate. After several days the plate is microscopically inspected and Naegleria cysts are identified by their morphology. Final confirmation of the species' identity can be performed by various molecular or biochemical methods. Confirmation of Naegleria presence can be done by so called flagellation test, when amoeba is exposed to hypotonic environment (distilled water). Naegleria in contrast to other amoebae differentiates within two hours into flagellar state. Pathogenicity can be further confirmed by exposition to high temperature (42°C), where is Naegleria fowleri as pathogenic species of Naegleria able to grow in contrast to Naegleria gruberi etc.

Naegleria lives almost everywhere in lakes, hot springs, even dirty swimming pools, grazing off algae and bacteria in the sediment.

People become infected when they wade through shallow water and stir up the bottom. If someone allows water to shoot up the nose — say, by doing a somersault in chest-deep water — the amoeba can latch onto the olfactory nerve.
The amoeba destroys tissue as it makes its way up into the brain, where it continues the damage, “basically feeding on the brain cells.

People who are infected tend to complain of a stiff neck, headaches and fevers. In the later stages, they’ll show signs of brain damage such as hallucinations and behavioral changes, he said.
Once infected, most people have little chance of survival. Some drugs have stopped the amoeba in lab experiments, but people who have been attacked rarely survive.

So far this brain eating amoeba has killed 23 people in USA from 1995 to 2004. From its inital exposure, it wud be fatal within 2 weeks. Scientist are still baffled as to why this brain eating amoeba infects frequently among children especially young boys with comparism to that of young girls.