Probiotics vagus

The human gut microbiome plays an important role in the maturation of the neural, immune, and endocrine systems. Research data from animal models shows that gut microbiota communicate with the host's brain in an elaborate network of signaling pathways, including the vagus nerve. Part of the microbiome's influence extends to the behavioral and social development of its host. As a social species, a human's ability to communicate with others is imperative to their survival and quality of life. Current research explores the gut microbiota's developmental influence as well as how these gut-brain pathways can be leveraged to alleviate the social symptoms associated with various neurodevelopmental and psychiatric diseases...

The aetiologies and origins of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Huntington's disease (HD), are complex and multifaceted. A growing body of evidence suggests that the gut microbiome plays crucial roles in the development and progression of neurodegenerative diseases. Clinicians have come to realize that therapeutics targeting the gut microbiome have the potential to halt the progression of neurodegenerative diseases...

Limited treatment options have been shown to alter the natural course of constipation-predominant irritable bowel syndrome (IBS-C). Therefore, safer and more effective approaches are urgently needed. We investigated the effects of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) in a mouse model of IBS-C. In the current study, C57BL/6 mice were randomly divided into normal control, IBS-C model control, sham-electrostimulation (sham-ES), taVNS, and drug treatment groups. The effects of taVNS on fecal pellet number, fecal water content, and gastrointestinal transit were evaluated in IBS-C model mice...

The gut microbiota during early life plays a crucial role in infant development. This microbial-host interaction is also essential for metabolism, immunity, and overall human health in later life. Early-life pharmaceutical exposure, mainly referring to exposure during pregnancy, childbirth, and infancy, may change the structure and function of gut microbiota and affect later human health. In this Review, we describe how healthy gut microbiota is established in early life. We summarise the commonly prescribed medications during early life, including antibiotics, acid suppressant medications and other medications such as antidepressants, analgesics and steroid hormones, and discuss how these medication-induced changes in gut microbiota are involved in the pathological process of diseases, including infections, inflammatory bowel disease, metabolic diseases, allergic diseases and neurodevelopmental disorders...

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a chronic metabolic disorder characterized by hyperglycemia and insulin resistance. The global prevalence of T2DM has reached epidemic proportions, affecting approximately 463 million adults worldwide in 2019. Current treatments for T2DM include lifestyle modifications, oral antidiabetic agents, and insulin therapy. However, these therapies may carry side effects and fail to achieve optimal glycemic control in some patients. Therefore, there is a growing interest in the role of gut microbiota and more gut-targeted therapies in the management of T2DM...

More than half of the patients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have gastrointestinal (GI) comorbidities, such as constipation, indigestion, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. Recent studies suggest prescribing probiotics and prebiotics in ASD could relieve GI disturbances and behavioral issues. This narrative review generalizes the research progress on probiotic and prebiotic therapies for ASD over the past 5 years and further discusses the underlying mechanisms of interaction between probiotics and prebiotics with ASD...

Probiotic intervention, already showing promise in the treatment of various psychiatric disorders like depression, emerges as a potential therapy for anorexia nervosa (AN) with minimal side effects. In this study, we established an activity-based anorexia (ABA) model to probe the pathogenesis of AN and assess the impact of probiotics on ABA mice. ABA resulted in a compensatory increase in duodenal ghrelin levels, impairing the regulation of feeding and the brain reward system. Intervention with Streptococcus salivarius subsp...

There is a bi-directional communication between the gut, including the microbiota, and the brain through the autonomic nervous system. Accumulating evidence has suggested a bidirectional link between gastrointestinal inflammation and neurodegeneration, in accordance with the concept of the gut-rain axis. An abnormal microbiota-gut-brain interaction contributes to the pathogeny of Parkinson's disease. This supports the hypothesis that Parkinson's disease originates in the gut to spread to the central nervous system, in particular through the vagus nerve...

This narrative describes a personal journey that led to the discovery of a profound connection between microbial symbionts and oxytocin. Pivotal oxytocin discoveries began to emerge in 2011 while this researcher's multidisciplinary team explored gut microbial priming of the immune system and perinatal health. Inspired by oxytocin's role in early life events of milk release, neural connections, and social bonding, the team hypothesized a symbiotic relationship between microbes and oxytocin. Scientific experiments demonstrated that specific milk-borne microbes boosted oxytocin levels through a vagus nerve-mediated gut-brain pathway, affecting immune functions and wound healing capacity in the host animal...

The mammalian host microbiome affects many targets throughout the body, at least in part through an integrated gut-brain-immune axis and neuropeptide hormone oxytocin. It was discovered in animal models that microbial symbionts, such as Lactobacillus reuteri , leverage perinatal niches to promote multigenerational good health and reproductive fitness. While roles for oxytocin were once limited to women, such as giving birth and nurturing offspring, oxytocin is now also proposed to have important roles linking microbial symbionts with overall host fitness and survival throughout the evolutionary journey...

Gut-liver-brain axis is a three-way highway of information interaction system among the gastrointestinal tract, liver, and nervous systems. In the past few decades, breakthrough progress has been made in the gut liver brain axis, mainly through understanding its formation mechanism and increasing treatment strategies. In this review, we discuss various complex networks including barrier permeability, gut hormones, gut microbial metabolites, vagus nerve, neurotransmitters, immunity, brain toxic metabolites, β-amyloid (Aβ) metabolism, and epigenetic regulation in the gut-liver-brain axis...

Parkinson's disease is a chronic neuropathy characterised by the formation of Lewy bodies (misfolded alpha-synuclein) in dopaminergic neurons of the substantia nigra and other parts of the brain. Dopaminergic neurons play a vital role in generating both motor and non-motor symptoms. Finding therapeutic targets for Parkinson's disease (PD) is hindered due to an incomplete understanding of the disease's pathophysiology. Existing evidence suggests that the gut microbiota participates in the pathogenesis of PD via immunological, neuroendocrine, and direct neural mechanisms...

Overeating disorders (ODs), usually stemming from dieting history and stress, remain a pervasive issue in contemporary society, with the pathological mechanisms largely unresolved. Here, we show that alterations in intestinal microbiota are responsible for the excessive intake of palatable foods in OD mice and patients with bulimia nervosa (BN). Stress combined with a history of dieting causes significant changes in the microbiota and the intestinal metabolism, which disinhibit the vagus nerve terminals in the gut and thereby lead to a subsequent hyperactivation of the gut-brain axis passing through the vagus, the solitary tract nucleus, and the paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus...

Sleep disorders are becoming increasingly common, and their distinct effects on physical and mental health require elaborate investigation. Gut dysbiosis (GD) has been reported in sleep-related disorders, but sleep apnoea is of particular significance because of its higher prevalence and chronicity. Cumulative evidence has suggested a link between sleep apnoea and GD. This review highlights the gut-brain communication axis that is mediated via commensal microbes and various microbiota-derived metabolites (e...

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection has resulted in a serious public health burden worldwide. In addition to respiratory, heart, and gastrointestinal symptoms, patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 experience a number of persistent neurological and psychiatric symptoms, known as long COVID or "brain fog". Studies of autopsy samples from patients who died from COVID-19 detected SARS-CoV-2 in the brain. Furthermore, increasing evidence shows that Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) reactivation after SARS-CoV-2 infection might play a role in long COVID symptoms...

A fundamental shift in neuroscience suggests bidirectional interaction of gut microbiota with the healthy and dysfunctional brain. This microbiota-gut-brain axis has mainly been investigated in stress-related psychopathology (e.g. depression, anxiety). The hippocampus, a key structure in both the healthy brain and psychopathologies, is implicated by work in rodents that suggests gut microbiota substantially impact hippocampal-dependent learning and memory. However, understanding microbiota-hippocampus mechanisms in health and disease, and translation to humans, is hampered by the absence of a coherent evaluative approach...

BACKGROUND: Parkinson's disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disease. No disease-modifying treatment is available, and therapy is symptomatic. The histopathologic hallmark is the loss of dopaminergic neurons and accumulation of α-synuclein (α-syn) in surviving neurons, but the underlying pathophysiology is unclear. Inflammatory mechanisms seem to play a prominent role, with an imbalance of immune functions and neurotoxicity caused by reactive oxygen species (ROS). Involvement of peripheral adaptive immunity, with an imbalance in T cell subpopulations and in the expression of transcriptional factors in CD4+ T cells, has also been reported...

BACKGROUND: Liangxue Tongyu prescription (LTP) is a commonly used formula for acute intracerebral hemorrhage (AICH) in clinical practice that has significant ameliorative effects on neurological deficits and gastrointestinal dysfunction, yet the mechanism remains elusive. The aim of this study was to investigate the pathway by which LTP alleviates brain damage in AICH rats. METHODS: The AICH rat models were established by autologous caudal arterial blood injection...

The birth, maturation, and integration of new neurons in the adult hippocampus regulates specific learning and memory processes, responses to stress, and antidepressant treatment efficacy. This process of adult hippocampal neurogenesis is sensitive to environmental stimuli, including peripheral signals from certain cytokines, hormones, and metabolites, which can promote or hinder the production and survival of new hippocampal neurons. The trillions of microorganisms resident to the gastrointestinal tract, collectively known as the gut microbiota, also demonstrate the ability to modulate adult hippocampal neurogenesis...

The chicken gastrointestinal tract has a diverse microbial community. There is increasing evidence for how this gut microbiome affects specific molecular pathways and the overall physiology, nervous system and behavior of the chicken host organism due to a growing number of studies investigating conditions such as host diet, antibiotics, probiotics, and germ-free and germ-reduced models. Systems-level investigations have revealed a network of microbiome-related interactions between the gut and state of health and behavior in chickens and other animals...