Worms In The Brain

When I did the recent search of current hot key words that people were searching for the phrase "Worms in the brain" was high on the list.

I thought to myself that there must have been a case of this reported on the news so everyone watching heard about a man or a woman having worms in the brain and did internet searches to find out more about it. I did the same.

There are several types of parasites that could infect the brain thus being
classified as worms in the brain. Tapeworms and amoebas were the most common types followed by cancerous cells and maggots. Viewing some of the pictures of worms in the brain could give some people nightmares for weeks.

Speaking of nightmares, I remember watching an episode on the old Night Gallery show (hosted by The Twilight Zone's Rod Serling) that dealt with a parasitic worm in the brain.

A minute parasitic worm had somehow gotten into the man's ear. For weeks the man experienced excruciating pain in his head. If I remember correctly, he did visit medical specialists who found the parasite in his brain. They told the patient they couldn't operate without the patient dying. He had to wait until the worm had eaten his way through his brain to exit out the other ear which is what happened.

Obviously, since I still remember that over 30 years later, I found the idea of a parasite eating through my brain horrifying.

Why was there such a surge of internet searches for "worms in the brain"? It seems there was a recent episode of Grey's Anatomy that featured this.

A fictional show. Figures.