WIKIMEDIA, SEWERYN OLKOWICZPrevious research has shown that high doses of broad-spectrum antibiotics can affect the behavior of adult animals, and numerous epidemiological studies have begun to link early-life antibiotic use to diverse ailments in humans. A study published last week (April 4) in Nature Communications adds to this growing literature, demonstrating that even low, clinically relevant doses of the classic narrow-spectrum antibiotic penicillin can trigger changes in the gut microbiome, in the blood-brain barrier and brain chemistry, and in the behaviors of mice exposed at a young age. Treating the mice with Lactobacillus rhamnosus bacteria, however, helped protect the mice against the effects of early-life, low-dose penicillin exposure.
“There are almost no babies in North America that haven’t received a course of antibiotics in their first year of life,” McMaster University coauthor John Bienenstock, who is also the director of the Brain-Body Institute at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, said in a press release. “In this paper, we report that low-dose penicillin taken late in pregnancy and in early life of mice offspring, changes behavior and the balance of microbes in the gut. While these studies have been performed in mice, they point to popular increasing concerns about the long-term effects of antibiotics. Furthermore, our results suggest that a probiotic might be effective in preventing the detrimental effects of the penicillin.”
Bienenstock and colleagues gave pregnant female mice low doses of penicillin during their ...
