The possible clinical correlation between preterm neurodevelopment and alterations in gut eubiosis

Abstract

In the literature, the topic of neurocognitive development of preterm infants is of current interest. For more than a century, efforts have been made to study and demonstrate what factors may facilitate or interfere with normal neurodevelopment in preterm infants. Recently, attention seems to have focused on the role of gut microbiota. Several studies have shown that the cognitive performance of infants born preterm is lower in general and specific skills; behavior is also reduced in the first year of life; and, by school age, the cognitive development of infants born preterm is lower than that of full-term infants (these deficits are evident in the areas of learning, reading, writing, and mathematical skills, fine motor skills, communication, memory, and attention); however, there is currently no scientific evidence to confirm the existence of premature alterations in the gut microbiota concerning these morbid conditions, although there is evidence for the existence of the gut-brain axis and adverse outcomes on neurobiological function following physical afflictions, such as sepsis, necrotizing enterocolitis and other diseases. Supplementation of prebiotics and probiotics does not appear to correlate with improvement or worsening of future neurobiological and cognitive status, except in the ability to positively influence pathological conditions that indirectly may interfere with healthy neurodevelopmental outcomes of the premature infant.