Microbes and Our Minds

Normally we look at ourselves and see only one living thing, but in reality we are home to billions of tiny little organisms. All of these unnoticed organisms make up what scientists call the human microbiome, and the DNA of these organisms out number our DNA one to one hundred. For most people this could be a tad frightening but our microbiome actually keeps us healthy, and without them we would be giving ourselves an utter death sentence. We understand that as we develop of brains growing up we are influenced by the microbes given to us, but now scientists are starting to wonder if microbes in our bodies influence our minds and adults. There are actually a number of Scientists and doctors who have conducting very interesting experiments on the topic. Dr. Emeran Meyer claims that he has made the connection between gut microbes and brain functions. This would open a whole new realm of medicine that would harness the power of microbes to treat psychological diseases. Meyer took a total of 60 patients and introduced them all with different types of probiotics and antibiotics then performed MRI scans to detect certain brain patterns. The results were very clear, people with certain gut microbes had brain connections that people without the microbes did not. This then leaves the question how does the brain communicate with microbes in our gut.  Stephen Collins of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, performed an experiment on mice where he took the gut microbes of fearless mice and gave them to mice with anxiety. Results showed that the anxious mice began to be less anxious and be more gregarious. The vagus nerve was Collins first clue to how the brain communicates with the gut, this nerve is in all spines, and when he severed this nerve in the mice the brain stopped responding to the additional microbes added to the gut.