Cordyceps brain infection – life cycle and pathogenesis

Widely known as Cordyceps brain infection, the fungal human pathogen Ophiocordyceps internicivus is a newly emerged species of “zombie fungus”, first described by Newman in 1970 as an endemic infection in Argentina and later, in 2003 by Ratna Pertiwi as the cause of a full-scale epidemy in Jaccarta. It is a highly aggressive species, first believed to be a mutated strain of O. unilateralis, but later found to be an entirely different species, initially restricted to small rodents in South America. In the current study, we summarized all known information on this significant pathogen, because of its significance for the current epidemiology.