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Plato's Allegory of the Cave
Meme Structure
Plato's Allegory of the Cave describes a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them and begin to ascribe forms to these shadows. According to the allegory, the shadows are as close as the prisoners get to viewing reality. Plato suggests that the shadows are the prisoners' reality but that there is a higher, more true level of reality, hidden from human eyes.
Meme Relevance
Anything that influences human thought can be characterized as the puppeteers in the allegory of the cave. Fungi like candida and cryptococcus can be considered the puppeteers in this metaphor. This is due to the influence on the gut-brain axis and residence in the brain.
Crossing the blood brain barrier
Fungi can access the central nervous system (CNS) by crossing the blood-brain barrier (BBB) through a few key mechanisms:
Transcellular penetration: Fungi like Cryptococcus neoformans can actively invade and penetrate through brain endothelial cells to cross the BBB. This involves interactions between fungal surface proteins and receptors on the endothelial cells. 2,3.
Paracellular migration: Fungi like Candida albicans may also be able to cross the BBB through the spaces between endothelial cells, by degrading tight junction proteins like E-cadherin. 1
Trojan horse mechanism: Fungi can also use immune cells like monocytes to "hitch a ride" across the BBB, a process known as the Trojan horse mechanism. 2
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