Can Cordyceps Infect Humans and Cause Zombie Apocalypse (Last Of Us)?

One of the most common questions I get asked on TikTok is if I’m going to start a “Last Of Us” zombie scenario. In this video game, a Cordyceps like fungus makes the jump to humans, turning them into fearsome flesh eating zombies that also produce infectious spores across several stages of zombie maturity. While this is some fantastic Sci-Fi writing, the feasibility of this (and all zombie scenarios) is 0.
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Cordyceps are incredibly fascinating fungi. Generally, they are Ascomycetes that spend part of their life cycle as haploid molds in the soil, until they infect insect larvae and colonizing the insect hemolymph with mycelium. The fungus produces a powerful suite of 2nd metabolites that inhibit the insects own immune system and biological processes (but leaving their brains mostly unaffected). The mycelium then locomotes the bug through hydraulic motion up the branch of a plant to a specific heigh where a mushroom grows out of the infected insect and disperses its spores onto the ground and bugs below. Quite a fantastic and potentially terrifying life cycle (if you’re a bug).
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As a human, we don’t have to worry about our entire body being colonized by a Cordyceps fungi and turning into a zombie. We are large organisms with a complex immune system that is generally very good at dealing with slow moving fungal infections (except for people who are immune compromised). Given that mammals have fundamentally different biology than insects (blood vs hemolymph), we don’t have to worry about becoming zombies. However, after talking to @fishroom_man I did learn that there are a few Cordyceps species that can infect humans as opportunistic pathogens, but they generally cause mild symptoms as skin rashes rather than a full blown zombification.
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#lastofus #lastofus2 #cordyceps #zombies #scifi #scicomm #biochemistry #cordycepsfungus #fascinatedbyfungi #mycology #educationalvideos

[chi_chai]

"Say the temperature rises and now there's a need to adapt"

[bunsenn]

In the real world, a cordyceps that infects humans probably wouldn’t progress into aggressive zombies. It would more so be something like a dormant fungus, which does something similar to an ant, causing the human to move to a crowded area, bite down/stay still, die, and release a bunch of spores. It wouldn’t make humans attack each other, but would instead turn each human into a fungal landmine.

[von_Farr]

The chance of humanity destroying itself far exceeds any other scenario.

[marinacroy]

I read once that cordyceps doesn't infect the brain, and the infected insects retain normal brain activity, suggesting that they remain conscious while unable to control their actions. I like to imagine that in the game, all the humans are still intelligent and completely aware of what they've become, makes it 10x spookier.

[miledith]

I remember reading about this fungus when I was a child and it both fascinated and horrified me because it basically was making dead ants walk and the imagery of mushrooms growing out of an ant was so strange to me.

[rituparnrongatex-b]

But what if it mutates?
They can mutate to fight our immune system ....right?

[ReptilianAnusWizzard]

i take cordyceps as a am mildly freaked out that its the same Fungus

[bilal]

People forget that we are master survivors naturally and have immense Sci tech, even if it evolves we evolve too

[a.j.kimball]

Yall should know that cordyceps and similar fungi have existed as we know it since at least the Jurassic, if not much earlier. And not once do we have evidence of them going to a host outside of arthropods. They are very specialized for their current hosts and have no means, nor reason to jump hosts to mammals, or any other vertebrate for that matter. Our size, immune systems, anatomy, microbiomes, and metabolism are all wildly different from that of arthropods. The closest we have, and likely we're ever going to get, to cordyceps fungi is parasitic fungi like athlete's foot, ringworm, and parasitic yeasts. These parasites are doing just fine, and have no evolutionary reasoning to take over your body and kill you. Remember, evolution is about "survival of the good enough". If an organism can survive and doesn't need a ton of unnecessary and out of the way adaptations to do something, its gonna just keep doing what its doing.

[devin_details]

Crazy thing about cordyceps is there is no mind control involved. The fungus releases chemicals that control the movements of the muscles in the ants. The ants are usually completely aware of their own surroundings. They are basically imprisoned in their own bodies until the cordyceps executes them.

[HBDiniz]

I've seen people in the comments say that it could "mutate" but even if it could survive inside the human body, taking control of our ridiculously complex brain system would require millions of years and even then it wouldn't turn us into crazy monsters that bite other people lol

[rgulrplr]

"Hopefully the humans inmune system is much stronger than the bugs."
The guy with AIDS: Ellie, stay away from those

[conor-smith]

Another factor is that insects have very simple brains, where a single chemical signal might be all they need to seek out water, or a high place, etc. Human brains are monstrously complex and poking it is more likely to just turn you into a vegetable rather than bite people.

[thesnakeman]

It may not be realistic, sure but the sheer thought alone that it could happen in a universe similar to the show and the games is still kinda terrifying AF

[freakkyser]

The biggest thing about this is that insects dont have an adaptive immune system, the fungus doesnt need to try any harder to infect its orey thus the chance of mutating is low, even then it would probably just go to different insects

[ezQ]

“Fungi will adapt to warmer climates by developing greater heat tolerance, ” said Casadevall, who is a microbiologist specializing in fungal diseases at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “Some will then be able to grow at human temperatures and cause new fungal diseases that we have not seen before.” -WP

[Julesorjulz]

It could happen, but I really doubt we'd be running around biting people. It would probably just kill us 😅 slowly and miserably

[jeremyroy]

Cordyceps are actually an amazing supplement and give you God like cardio. There was a chinese olympic swim team that blew everyone out of the water one year and they credited it to cordys.

[logantidwell]

Not to mention how extremely unlikely it is that the fungus will suddenly leap from ants to humans. We are not ants, we are a million times more complex. It would require a million years of evolution where the fungus evolved to infect more and more complex things, and I think in that time we'd notice the trend

[rainbow_vader]

Some mad scientist in a lab somewhere: NEVER TELL ME THE ODDS