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Health See other Health Articles Title: Gut bacteria linked to altered brain function MedGuru: Women who regularly consume foods containing beneficial bacteria known as probiotics have better brain functions, findings of a new research from UCLA claim. According to the findings of a new study, changing levels of gut bacteria can significantly impact brain functioning. The study, published in the current online edition of the peer-reviewed journal Gastroenterology, suggests that women who regularly eat yogurt containing probiotic bacteria report improved brain functioning both in a resting state and in response to emotion-recognition tasks. The study For the purpose of the study, researchers from the UCLA's Gail and Gerald Oppenheimer Family Center for Neurobiology of Stress and the Ahmanson–Lovelace Brain Mapping Center at UCLA, recruited 36 healthy women between the ages of 18 and 55. The participants were divided into three groups: the first group was assigned to eat probiotic yogurt twice a day for four weeks; the second group ate yogurt sans probiotics; and the third group ate no such food. Researchers carried out functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans on all participants both at the start and end of the four-week study. During scans, women were shown a series of pictures of people with angry or frightened faces and they were required to match them to other faces that exhibited similar emotions. The scans particularly targeted areas of the brain that are associated with emotion and pain. Researchers found that women who consumed probiotic yogurt reported decreased activity in the insula and the somatosensory, the areas of the brain associated with pain and emotion as compared to women who either consumed yogurt sans probiotic or not at all. “Our findings indicate that some of the contents of yogurt may actually change the way our brain responds to the environment. “When we consider the implications of this work, the old sayings "you are what you eat" and "gut feelings'" take on new meaning,” study’s lead researcher, Dr. Kirsten Tillisch of UCLA's School of Medicine, said. “There are studies showing that what we eat can alter the composition and products of the gut flora — in particular, that people with high-vegetable, fiber-based diets have a different composition of their microbiota, or gut environment, than people who eat the more typical Western diet that is high in fat and carbohydrates,” said Dr. Emeran Mayer, a professor of medicine, physiology and psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the study's senior author. “Now we know that this has an effect not only on the metabolism but also affects brain function.” Poster Comment: Probably metabolite produced by bacteria is used in brain. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: Tatarewicz (#0)
I wonder about this. How, exactly, does it alter the way the brain responds to certain stimuli? "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke
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