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Gut Feelings: Microbiome May Affect Mental Health and Interact With Treatments

I have a feeling that we've seen this already but had a look and couldn't see it shared here.

All of us who have experienced a “nervous stomach” under periods of stress suspect that there is a link between our gut and our mood. This link received strong scientific support during a series of presentations at the recent meeting of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.

As noted by Dr. Vicki Ellingrod – the Chair of this session, “Current state-of-the-art research in both animal models as well as humans point to the link between the gut microbiota and mood and anxiety models, as well as the potential for psychiatric medications to directly affect the gut microbiome.”

This link was most convincingly demonstrated when changes in the diversity of microorganisms living in the gastrointestinal system were measured while rats were subjected to chronic stress over a 7-week period. Not only did the number of microorganisms decrease as stress became more chronic, behavioral changes suggested that the rats also began experiencing loss of pleasure and “despair-like” behavior. Moreover, when these microorganisms were transferred from the stressed rats to a new group of animals that had not been stressed, Dr. Emily Jutkiewicz found that these new animals also began to demonstrate these same behavioral changes after 5 days, suggesting a potential causal mechanism.

http://neurosciencenews.com/microbiome-mental-health-5702/