Studies in individuals with various psychiatric disorders have found that the composition of the gut microbiota is associated with changes in psychological functioning. Specifically, the researchers found associations between functional areas such as negative valence, social processes, cognitive systems, and arousal/regulatory systems and the abundance of eight microbial genera present in the gut. was identified. This research brain, behavior, immunity.
Human behavior, psychological functioning, and neurological processes can be broadly classified into several functional areas. One widely used framework for this classification is the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) developed by the National Institute of Mental Health. The RDoC framework defines six domains: negative valence system, positive valence system, cognitive system, social processes, arousal/regulatory system, and sensorimotor system.
The negative valence system includes responses to aversive stimuli such as fear, anxiety, and loss, and has been implicated in conditions such as anxiety disorders and depression. The positive valence system governs processes related to reward, motivation, and decision-making, and dysregulation contributes to disorders such as addiction and anhedonia. The cognitive system includes higher-order cognitive processes such as attention, memory, and executive function, and these processes are often impaired in disorders such as schizophrenia and ADHD.
The social processing system governs understanding and interaction with others, including social cognition and the perception of social cues, with disruptions associated with conditions such as autism and social anxiety. . The arousal and regulatory system regulates states such as wakefulness, sleep, arousal, and homeostasis, with dysfunction associated with sleep disorders and mood instability. The sensorimotor system, a recent addition to the framework, is involved in motor output and sensory integration and is affected in conditions such as Parkinson’s disease and tic disorders.
Study author Danik Mulder and colleagues aimed to investigate the relationship between these functional domains and the composition of the gut microbiota. The recent discovery of the microbiota-gut-brain axis, a bidirectional communication pathway linking the brain and human gut microbial communities, has sparked a wave of research examining the relationship between the gut microbiome and psychological and mental health conditions. It’s crowded. These studies have rapidly identified and mapped the biochemical pathways underlying these interactions.
This study included 369 participants. Of these, 97 had no mental illness, but 272 were diagnosed with a mood disorder, anxiety disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder, or substance use disorder. The average age of participants was 40-41 years, and 53% were male.
Participants provided fecal samples, allowing researchers to examine the composition of their gut microbiota. They also completed eight self-report questionnaires designed to assess symptoms, personality traits, and other psychological constructs specific to the disorder. Based on these questionnaires, researchers created measures of functioning in four of the six RDoC domains: negative valence, social processes, cognitive systems, and arousal/regulatory systems. Higher scores in these areas indicate poorer or more severely impaired function.
As a result, people with a higher diversity of microbial species within their gut microbiota (alpha diversity) tend to have lower scores in the negative valence and arousal/regulatory system domains and function better in these domains. It was shown that
The abundances of 8 out of 211 identified gut microbial genera were related to the functions of the four RDoC domains. High content of CHKCI001, Selimonas, flavonifractorand Oscilibacter is associated with higher scores in negative valence domains, indicating decreased functioning in that domain. Conversely, when the abundance decreases, Clostridium sensustrict 1 Bacteria were associated with better functionality in negatively valenced domains.
higher amount of Selimonas genus was associated with poorer functioning in the social process domain; sporobacter and less abundant fungatera It was associated with functional decline in cognitive system areas.
“In this study, we identified several associations between the gut microbiota and RDoC domains of function across stress-related diseases and neurodevelopmental disorders. domain-specific, and partly in a broader, more general context,” the study authors concluded. “These findings advocate the inclusion of gut microbiota measurements in multidimensional diagnostic frameworks such as RDoC, complementing other established disease markers including brain, genetic, and immunological markers. Such an integrative approach could improve our understanding of the multifaceted biological factors that influence mental health and open new avenues for developing targeted therapeutic interventions.”
This study makes an important contribution to understanding the role that the gut microbiome plays in human mental health. However, it should be noted that this study focused on broad areas of functioning rather than specific symptoms. Additionally, the composition of the gut microbiota can be altered by dietary factors, but it remains unclear how such changes influence the observed associations.
The paper isGut microbiota composition is associated with variation in functional domains across psychiatric disorders.” is written by Danik Mulder, Babette Jacobi, Injie Shi, Peter Mulder, Josina D. Quist, Rose M. Collard, Gianna N. Friesen, Philip van Eindhoven, and Indira Tendulkar. , Mirjam Blumendahl, Alejandro Arias Vazquez.
