Guts and brains: How microbes in a mother ’s intestines affect fetal neurodevelopment

During pregnancy in mice, the billions of bacteria and other microbes that live in a mother ’s intestines regulate key metabolites, small molecules that are important for healthy fetal brain development,UCLA biologists report Sept. 23 in the journal Nature.While the maternal gut microbiota has been associated with abnormalities in the brain function and behavior of offspring — often in response to factors like infection, a high-fat diet or stress during pregnancy — scientists had not known until now whether it influenced brain development during critical prenatal periods and in the absence of such environmental challenges.To test the impact the gut microbiata has on the metabolites and other biochemicals that circulate in maternal blood and nurture the rapidly developing fetal brain, the researchers raised mice that were treated with antibiotics to kill gut bacteria, as well as mice that were bred microbe-free in a laboratory.“Depleting the maternal gut microbiota, using both methods, similarly disrupted fetal brain development,” said the study’s lead author, Helen Vuong, a postdoctoral scholar in laboratory of UCLA’s Elaine Hsiao.Depleting the maternal gut microbiota altered which genes were turned on in the brains of developing offspring, including many genes involved in forming new axons within neurons, Vuong said. Axons are tiny fibers that link brain cells and enable them to communicate.In particular, axons that connect the brain ’s thalamus to its cortex...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news