Who's Calling The Shots?

If you’re ever lonely just remind yourself that you have 40 trillion tiny little friends in low places. The low places I’m speaking of are the intestines. The complex relationship shared between the body and the 40 trillion bacterial cells sheltered in the intestines is of great interest even to psychologists now who speculate that disorders such as autism, depression, memory and obsessive-compulsive disorder may be related the gut microbes. So, it poses the question: who’s really calling the shots, the microbes, or the mind? The brain and microbes cross paths at the brain-gut-enteric microbiota axis, or the microbiome-gut-brain axis. Here microbes are believed to interact with nerves to impact hormones, and the hormones, as you may know, can contribute to a chemical imbalance that result in depression and other hormone-related issues. More research is needed in this topic, but the understanding is that altering the levels of gut microorganisms may alter out mood, behaviors, and memory.

See the full article at: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/312734.php