Thinking with your stomach? Gut feelings on microbiome modulation of brain structure and function (Commentary on Luczynski etal.).

Abstract

Is that a rumbling I feel in my stomach? Or perhaps it is the trillions of bacteria down there who are in revolt, fomenting (or fermenting!) a microbial revolution? No active biologist or medical researcher can easily ignore the revolution in gut microbiome research in recent years. It seems that the gut microbiome, the entire microbial ecosystem occupying the gastrointestinal ecological niche, can impact almost every organ in the human body, not least of which being the brain. The gut microbiome has been found to signal to both the developing and adult mammalian brain, modulating both health and disease states (Cryan and Dinan, 2012; Mayer et al., 2014). This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.