A fluoresence image of a mouse intestineWIKIMEDIA, KELVINH88Mice exhibiting autism-like behaviors enjoyed a reduction in their symptoms when treated with a human gut microbe, according to a study published recently (December 5) in Cell. The microbe also eased the mice’s gastrointestinal problems, which had previously linked to autism in humans.
The link between GI problems and autism had previously hinted at a role of the gut in the behavioral disorder. And in 2013, Caltech neurobiologist Paul Patterson and colleagues devised an autism mouse model in which intestinal walls break down allowing substances to leak out of the gut. Teaming up with Caltech colleagues Sarkis Mazmanian and Elaine Hsiao, Patterson found that the “autistic” mice harbored lower levels of Bacteroides fragilis in their guts. And when B. fragilis was added to the animals’ diets, they seemed to get better—both in terms of their behavior and their gastrointestinal health.
“It’s incredible that putting this one bacteria back can reverse all these widespread changes,” John Cryan, a pharmacologist at University College Cork in Ireland, told Nature. McMaster University’s ...
