Gut Bacteria Regulate Happiness

[Islander]

Posted By: Neuroscience News
June 12th, 2012

APC scientists have shown that brain levels of serotonin, the ‘happy hormone’ are regulated by the amount of bacteria in the gut during early life. Their research is being published today in the leading international psychiatry journal, Molecular Psychiatry.

This research shows that normal adult brain function depends on the presence of gut microbes during development. Scientists at the APC used a germ-free mouse model to show that the absence of bacteria during early life significantly affected serotonin concentrations in the brain in adulthood. Serotonin, the major chemical involved in the regulation of mood and emotion, is altered in times of stress, anxiety and depression and most clinically effective antidepressant drugs work by targeting this neurochemical.

Read more: http://neurosciencenews.com/gut-bact...pus-serotonin/

[highlander]

I wish they would define "early life." Would that be in the womb? Infancy?

[Islander]

Purely a guess, but I understand that Caesarian births lack the population of gut biota that comes with vaginal births. Does that help explain it?

[highlander]

Whew! Luckily, I arrived via vagina (before I grew up on antibiotics).

[Islander]

I dislike assessments that tell me something is "irreversible." Epigenetics basically tells us that everything is reversible, right?