Evidence for the Gut-Brain Connection

February 14th, 2020

By Nikki Harper

Staff Writer for Wake Up World

It has been known for several decades that gut health appears to have an effect on mental health and brain health – the so-called gut-brain axis. For example, autoimmune diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease have been linked with mood disorders, anxiety and depression. However, the precise mechanism by which the gut-brain axis functions has been largely unknown – but now, new research is starting to shed light on this matter.

According to research published in Nature and carried out by Weill Cornell Medicine, depleted microbiota in the gut can cause altered gene expression in microglia, which are immune cells found in the brain [1]. This effectively interferes with the connections of brain synapses which should occur during a learning process.

The breakthrough was made during a study of mice. Researchers found that mice treated with antibiotics, which depletes the levels of gut microbiota, showed impaired ability in fear extinction, ie they were slower to learn that a threat was no longer present than mice with normal levels of gut microbiota. When researchers sequenced the RNA in the mice microglia, the altered gene expression was discovered.

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