A study published in Microbiome examined bidirectional brain-gut microbiome interactions, gut microbial composition and if there are correlations between gut microbial measures and structural brain signatures in irritable bowel syndrome patients.
UC Los Angeles researcher Jennifer Labus, PhD, and colleagues collected behavioral measures, stool samples and structural brain images from 29 adults with IBS and from 23 controls.
Researchers use 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing to profile the microbial communities. They used multivariate analysis to measure microbial composition, abundance and diversity.
Here's what they found:
1. Researchers clustered samples into two subgroups, healthy control-like IBS (16) and health controls (23).
2. Researchers used a Random Forest classifier to further support the differentiation between the experimental and control groups. Faecalibacterium, Blautia and Bacteroides contributed to the subclassification.
3. Researchers correlated early life trauma and the duration of IBS symptoms for the IBS group.
4. Self-reported bowel habits, anxiety, depression or medication use made no impact.
5. Researchers linked gut microbial composition to measures of brain structures for patients who have suffered from early life trauma.
Researchers confirmed, "The results confirm previous reports of gut microbiome-based IBS subgroups and identify for the first time brain structural alterations associated with these subgroups. They provide preliminary evidence for the involvement of specific microbes and their predicted metabolites in these correlations."