Brain and microflora

Microflora bacteria can control women's emotions, scientists say

RIA Novosti (it says so, although at the end of this note it is written that scientists have only discovered a correlation and do not yet know what controls what – the VM).   

Observations of women's behavior and analysis of their microflora have shown that the peculiarities of the species composition of microbes in their intestines can affect their tendency to develop depression and the manifestation of other emotions, according to an article published in Psychosomatic Medicine: Journal of Biobehavioral Medicine (Tillisch et al., Brain structure and response to emotional stimulation related to gut microbial profiles in healthy women).

The human body contains about 10 times more bacteria, fungi and other representatives of the microflora than our own cells. Recent observations show that microflora can affect not only human metabolism and the likelihood of developing cancer and other diseases, but also its behavior.

For example, a year ago, American biologists discovered, experimenting on mice, that the development of autism may be due to the absence of one type of microbes, Lactobasillus reuteri bacteria in the intestines of children and their mothers. In addition, Russian biologists have repeatedly suggested that microflora can influence more complex behavioral reactions, affecting the level of hormones and signaling molecules of the nervous system.

Kirsten Tillisch from the University of California in Los Angeles (USA) revealed an unusual connection between the behavior of women and their microflora, observing the brain work of four dozen volunteers who agreed to undergo a series of tests to check their emotional reactions.

Before the test, Tillish and her colleagues asked the women to take all the tests, including samples of their microflora, the features in whose species composition the scientists tried to compare with the differences in the response of women to different emotional stimuli and with the differences in the structure of their brain.

As it turned out, such relationships really existed. For example, in women in whose microflora a large number of microbes from the genus Bacteroides were observed, the gray matter in the anterior part of their cerebral cortex was denser and thicker than in the rest of the study participants, and their hippocampus, the memory center, was noticeably larger.

Such women, as Tillish says (in a press release UCLA Research suggests association between gut bacteria and emotion - VM), were less likely to show emotions and also less likely to panic and depression. On the other hand, in women whose microflora contained many microbes from the genus Prevotella, they were characterized by increased emotionality and a large number of connections between those regions of the brain that are responsible for processing information coming from the sensory organs.

Such women, according to the authors of the discovery, were characterized by increased vulnerability to depression, depressed mood and were more irritable than other participants in the experiments. In addition, their memory center reacted worse to emotional stimuli associated with unpleasant events and personalities for them.

Such results, according to Tillish, indicate that the composition of the microflora may indeed be related to how a person behaves, how his brain works and even how his brain works. It is not yet clear what is the cause and what is the consequence – scientists plan to find out whether microbes affect the brain, or the brain – on the species composition of the microflora, in the course of further, larger-scale experiments.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  30.06.2017