Chemicals released by bacteria may help gut control the brain, mouse study suggests

[Andy]

David Artis, an immunologist and microbiologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City, wondered whether gut bacteria played any role in the learning and forgetting responses. He and colleagues treated mice with antibiotics to totally rid them of the bacteria in their gut, collectively known as the microbiome. They then played a tone and right after gave the mouse a mild shock, doing this multiple times.

All of the animals quickly learned to associate the noise with pain, freezing when they heard the sound. But only mice with normal microbiomes eventually forgot the connection: By 3 days, the noise no longer affected them most of them, whereas the antibiotic-treated mice still reacted, the team reports today in Nature.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/201...y-help-gut-control-brain-mouse-study-suggests

 

[Wonko]

So having a microbiome causes dementia?

I mean, forgetting that a noise is associated with pain, an experience that's been repeated multiple times, within a few days.

If they were people, instead of mice, you couldn't let them out, or in a kitchen, as no matter how many times they had burned themselves, or been knocked over, within 3 days, gone.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

Maybe someone should study the microbiota of the researchers involved?