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The microbiota-gut-brain axis
This 2019 review discusses the overall importance of the interactions between the microbiota in the gut and on the body, the gut, and the brain (the microbiota-gut-brain axis). Since there has been considerable research on this axis’ biological and physiological implications in psychiatric, neurodevelopmental, age-related, and neurodegenerative disorders, it has been explained that the microbiota and the brain communicate with each other through many routes including the immune system, tryptophan metabolism, the vagus nerve and the enteric nervous system, many of these processes involving microbial metabolites such as short-chain fatty acids, branched chain amino acids, and peptidoglycans. Cryan et al. (2019) also describes how the microbiota composition can be influenced from early on in life by infection, mode of birth delivery, use of antibiotic medications, the nature of nutritional provision, environmental stressors, and host genetics. And the diversity of microbiota declines with aging, while the microbiota-brain-axis can be affected at all stages of life, especially by stress which has a significant effect. Following the numerous recent studies exploring the gut microbiota in autism, anxiety, obesity, schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s disease to name a few, this review predicts the future research to focus on elucidating the mechanism underlying the microbiota-gut-brain axis, and discovering novel microbial-based interventions and therapeutic strategies for neuropsychiatric disorders. [NPID: microbiome, MGBA, gut-brain axis, gut microbiome, psychiatric, neurodevelopmental disorder, neurodegenerative disorders, immune system, tryptophan, BCAAs, short-chain fatty acids, antibiotics, environmental stressors, autism, anxiety, obesity, schizophrenia, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s]
Year: 2019
