Autism and gut microbes: scientific theory about their link
Hi
I found this interesting article today on the link between gut microbes and autism.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 095121.htm
What do you think?
I found this interesting article today on the link between gut microbes and autism.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 095121.htm
What do you think?
There is a basic epistemological problem. If one cannot identify who is autistic for certain sure how can one correlate autism with some other bodily condition?
ruveyn
I think that you should get together with the people who think that mitochondria are involved, the people who think that Autism is an inflammatory disease, the idiots who say that vaccinations cause Autism, and the nutters who swear that we're the next stage in human evolution. Then fight amongst yourselves.
The winner gets a pint of Jen & Berry's Indigo Rutabaga ice cream, imported from Planet X!
Too many theories ... not enough facts ...
Last edited by Fnord on 08 Jul 2013, 10:02 am, edited 2 times in total.
OP, thanks for sharing the article
So, the premise of this research was that the difference of our gut flora has anything to do with GI symptoms.
It turned out it didn't. I don't believe that having a different gut flora causes autism, correlation does not imply causation.
However, it's very interesting that we do.
The new study detected decreased microbial diversity in the 20 autistic subjects whose fecal samples were analyzed. Specifically, three bacterial genera -- Prevotella, Coprococcus and Veillonellaceae -- were diminished in subjects with autism, when compared with samples from normal children. (Surprisingly, these microbial changes did not seem directly correlated with the severity of GI symptoms.)
Speaking of gut flora:
The discovery that changing the bacterial environment, or microbiota, in the gut can affect the brain carries significant implications for future research that could point the way toward dietary or drug interventions to improve brain function, the researchers said.
"Many of us have a container of yogurt in our refrigerator that we may eat for enjoyment, for calcium or because we think it might help our health in other ways," said Dr. Kirsten Tillisch, an associate professor of medicine in the digestive diseases division at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine and lead author of the study. "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."
The small study involved 36 women between the ages of 18 and 55. Researchers divided the women into three groups: one group ate a specific yogurt containing a mix of several probiotics — bacteria thought to have a positive effect on the intestines — twice a day for four weeks; another group consumed a dairy product that looked and tasted like the yogurt but contained no probiotics; and a third group ate no product at all.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans conducted both before and after the four-week study period looked at the women's brains in a state of rest and in response to an emotion-recognition task in which they viewed a series of pictures of people with angry or frightened faces and matched them to other faces showing the same emotions. This task, designed to measure the engagement of affective and cognitive brain regions in response to a visual stimulus, was chosen because previous research in animals had linked changes in gut flora to changes in affective behaviors.
The researchers found that, compared with the women who didn't consume the probiotic yogurt, those who did showed a decrease in activity in both the insula — which processes and integrates internal body sensations, like those from the gut — and the somatosensory cortex during the emotional reactivity task.
Further, in response to the task, these women had a decrease in the engagement of a widespread network in the brain that includes emotion-, cognition- and sensory-related areas. The women in the other two groups showed a stable or increased activity in this network.
During the resting brain scan, the women consuming probiotics showed greater connectivity between a key brainstem region known as the periaqueductal grey and cognition-associated areas of the prefrontal cortex. The women who ate no product at all, on the other hand, showed greater connectivity of the periaqueductal grey to emotion- and sensation-related regions, while the group consuming the non-probiotic dairy product showed results in between.
The researchers were surprised to find that the brain effects could be seen in many areas, including those involved in sensory processing and not merely those associated with emotion, Tillisch said.
Contrary to those who consumed the probiotic yogurt, autistics show brain hyperactivity during face processing.
The winner gets a pint of Jen & Berry's Indigo Rutabaga ice cream, imported from Planet X!
Too many theories ... not enough facts ...
I was not aware that peer reviewed medical journals publish crackpot ideas? If there is a statistically significant association then obviously it does need to be investigated further. I notice considerable change to my daughter's behaviour around 30 minutes after she consumes probiotics or Omega 3.
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