A seldom seen but often deadly mold that attacks people’s brains seems to be causing more trouble as of late.

Scientists at the University of Washington and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied lab-confirmed reports of the fungus Cladophialophora bantiana. There has been a noticeable increase in detected cases over the past decade, the researchers found, particularly since 2023. Though these infections still appear to be rare, there is very little we clearly understand about the fungus, the researchers say, including how prevalent it truly is or even how it infects people in the first place.

“Reasons for the apparent increase are unknown,” the authors wrote in their paper, published late last week in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Human fungal infections are relatively uncommon compared to bacterial and viral ones, and brain infections are much rarer still. These life-threatening infections tend to be disseminated, meaning the fungi only invade the brain (and other parts of the body) after an initial infection elsewhere. Brain and other severe fungal infections also predominantly occur in people with already weakened immune systems.

C. bantiana is a strange, moldy exception to these rules. When inside the human body, it seems to prefer infecting the brain, typically causing abscesses (pockets of pus containing the fungus, the immune cells trying to fight it off, and other tissues). C. bantiana is also highly deadly when it causes illness, with a mortality rate ranging between 60% and 70% even with treatment. And it’s not picky about its victims either, according to study author Joshua Lieberman.

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