Gut Microbes and the Brain: Paradigm Shift in Neuroscience

By Emeran A. Mayer, Rob Knight, S. Mazmanian, J. Cryan, Kirsten Tillisch. Journal of Neuroscience, 2014

855 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The discovery of the size and complexity of the human microbiome has resulted in an ongoing reevaluation of many concepts of health and disease, including diseases affecting the CNS. A growing body of preclinical literature has demonstrated bidirectional signaling between the brain and the gut microbiome, involving multiple neurocrine and endocrine signaling mechanisms. While psychological and physical stressors can affect the composition and metabolic activity of the gut microbiota, experimental changes to the gut microbiome can affect emotional behavior and related brain systems. These findings have resulted in speculation that alterations in the gut microbiome may play a pathophysiological role in human brain diseases, including autism spectrum disorder, anxiety, depression, and chronic pain. Ongoing large-scale population-based studies of the gut microbiome and brain imaging studies looking at the effect of gut microbiome modulation on brain responses to emotion-related stimuli are seeking to validate these speculations. This article is a summary of emerging topics covered in a symposium and is not meant to be a comprehensive review of the subject.

Subfields: Biological Psychiatry, Molecular Biology, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/179468e1244ab8f75c004897ac672bde77ca33cc

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Citations in the corpus

Influence of Tryptophan and Serotonin on Mood and Cognition with a Possible Role of the Gut-Brain Axis (2016, background): “The suggestion that the gut-microbiota has central influence opens up many new possibilities, especially with the suggestion from Mayer and colleagues [126] that the composition and metabolic activity of the gut microbiota may play a role in such brain disorders as autism, anxiety, and depression.”
Kynurenine pathway metabolism and the microbiota‐gut‐brain axis (2017, background): “One of the most exciting developments in gut microbiota research over recent years has been the discovery that the collection of microorganisms in our gut can regulate aspects of brain function and behaviour (Cryan and Dinan, 2012; Mayer et al., 2014).”
Stress & the gut-brain axis: Regulation by the microbiome (2017, positive): “Findings such as these have contributed to a paradigm shift in neuroscience and psychiatry (Mayer et al., 2014b; Cryan and Dinan, 2012), such that the early development and later function of the brain may be modi ﬁ ed by targeting the microbiome.”
Breaking down the barriers: the gut microbiome, intestinal permeability and stress-related psychiatric disorders (2015, background): “…of possible brain-gut signaling pathways under the influence of the gut microbiota and capable of modulating brain and behavior (Rhee et al., 2009; Grenham et al., 2011; Cryan and Dinan, 2012, 2015; Collins and Bercik, 2013; Dinan and Cryan, 2013;McVeyNeufeld et al., 2013; Mayer et al., 2014a).”
Interoception and emotion. (2017, background): “Additionally, the inflammatory status of the bowel and composition of luminal gut bacteria also impact interoceptively on emotional functions [32].”
Gut instincts: microbiota as a key regulator of brain development, ageing and neurodegeneration (2017, background): “Moreover, up to 70% of patients with the syndrome co-present with gastrointestinal symptoms and hence the view that a disruption of the gut–brain axis is involved (Mayer et al. 2014b).”