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. 2021 Oct 14;11:760076. doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2021.760076

Table 3.

The studies associated with changes in brain regions and gut microbiota.

Study Design (subjects, intervention) Bacteries Changes in brain region (intestinal dysbacteriosis) Reference
GF and SPF NMRI mice / noradrenaline, dopamine, and 5-HT turnover↑ in the striatum; NGFI-A mRNA↓ in the orbital frontal cortex, striatum, hippocampus (CA1,CA3 region, dentate gyrus), amygdala; BDNF mRNA↓ in the hippocampus, amygdala, cingulate cortex in GF mice compared with SPF mice. Synaptophysin and PSD-95 in the striatum↓ in SPF and CON mice compared with GF mice. (Diaz Heijtz et al., 2011)
5 weeks male C57BL/6 mice (bacitracin, neomycin, natamycin, meropenem, vancomycin) Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes↓, Proteobacteria tight-junction proteins↓ of the brain blood vessels and BBB permeability↑ in antibiotic treated mice (Sun et al., 2021)
male Wistar rats (T2DM; Lactobacillus plantarum, inulin, or synbiotic) dominant populations were lactobacillus Lactobacillus plantarum led to a significant decrease in TLR-2 as well as GDNF and GFAP only in the amygdala (Hosseinifard et al., 2019)
Healthy women (FMPP: 12, controls: 11, no intervention: 13) / FMPP reduces the reactivity of a widely distributed network of brain regions (primary interoceptive and somatosensory regions, and a cluster in the midbrain region centered on the periaqueductal gray, the prefrontal cortex, precuneus, basal ganglia, and the parahippocampal gyrus) to an emotional attention task. (Tillisch et al., 2013)
Swiss Webster (GF and CON mice); Adult male Sprague Dawley rats (ampicillin, vancomycin, ciprofloxacin HCL, imipenem, metronidazole) / 103 miRNAs (61 downregulated, 42 upregulated) changed in the amygdala, and 31 miRNAs (21 downregulated, 10 upregulated) altered in the PFC in GF animals (Hoban et al., 2017)
BALB/c mice (SPF and GF mice) / l-aspartic acid in striatum, cerebral cortex and hippocampus, and l-arginine, l-alanine and l-valine in striatum↑ in SPF mice than in GF mice (Kawase et al., 2017)
12 weeks C57BL/6J mice (SPF and GF mice) / microbiota dependent-hypomyelination of several gray matter structures (neocortex, HIP, brainstem) and major white matter tracts (the corpus callosum, anterior commissure, internal capsule) specifically in GF mice using MPF imaging. (Lu et al., 2018)
Swiss Webster (GF and CC mice) / the volumes of ACC↓and periaqueductal grey↑, dendritic changes in the ACC were evident in GFmice. (Luczynski et al., 2017)
6 weeks male C57BL/6J mice (ampicillin, streptomycin, clindamycin) Bifidobacterium, Escherichia Coli, Lactobacillus Fos immunoreactive (ir) neurons in mPFC and HIP↓, in ACC and IC↑ in antibiotic treated mice (Wang et al., 2021b)
GF mice (E. coli JM83, complex microbiota, or no microbiota) / displayed disorganization of gene co-expression networks in HIP, amygdala, mPFC in E. coli JM83 treated mice (Philip et al., 2021)

↑, indicates increase; ↓, indicates decrease.

ACC, anterior cingulate cortex; BBB, blood-brain barrier; CC, conventionally colonized; FMPP, fermented milk product with probiotic, containing Bifidobacterium animalis subsp Lactis, Streptococcus thermophiles, Lactobacillus bulgaricus, and Lactococcus lactis subsp Lactis; GDNF, glial cell-derived neurotrophic factor; GFAP, glial fibrillary acidic protein; GF, germ-free; HIP, hippocampus; IC, insular cortex; PFC, prefrontal cortex; SPF, specific pathogen -free; T2DM, type 2 diabetes mellitus.