{"id":87169,"date":"2023-08-08T15:26:45","date_gmt":"2023-08-08T19:26:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=87169"},"modified":"2023-08-08T15:26:45","modified_gmt":"2023-08-08T19:26:45","slug":"brock-researcher-explores-the-guts-connection-to-mental-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2023\/08\/brock-researcher-explores-the-guts-connection-to-mental-health\/","title":{"rendered":"Brock researcher explores the gut’s connection to mental health"},"content":{"rendered":"

Almost everyone living with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) will experience depression, anxiety or other mental health challenge at some point in their lives. Increasingly, these conditions are being linked to what\u2019s happening in their gut, says Charlis Raineki, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Brock University.<\/p>\n

Raineki and Tamara Bodnar, Assistant Professor at the University of Calgary, are co-leading research examining how prenatal alcohol exposure affects gut structure, function and microbiota composition as well as how these factors affect the immune system and mental health.<\/p>\n

This research is funded by the U.S. government\u2019s National Institutes of Health (NIH)\u2019s National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Raineki is the first Brock researcher to be a lead investigator on an NIH grant.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnderstanding the mechanisms underlying mental health problems, and resilience to those challenges, is crucial for improving early intervention and long-term health and well-being for individuals with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders,\u201d says Raineki.<\/p>\n

Research published last year<\/a> by Raineki\u2019s co-leader Bodnar used an animal model of prenatal alcohol exposure to show, for the first time, that prenatal alcohol exposure has a \u201clong-lasting\u201d impact on the gut microbiota composition.<\/p>\n

In their NIH-funded research, the team will continue testing out their findings from animal models and begin translating this work in human adults \u2014 a study that is unprecedented, says Raineki.<\/p>\n

The gut contains a collection of bacteria, viruses, fungi and other microbes called microbiota. A healthy gut microbiota promotes \u2018good\u2019 HDL cholesterol and triglycerides for heart health, controls blood sugar, helps produce neurotransmitters that act as anti-depressants, regulates weight gain and impacts how the immune system responds to infections, among other benefits.<\/p>\n

The \u2018gut-immune-brain axis\u2019 is a communication system connecting the gut microbiota to the brain and immune system. Proper regulation of this system is \u201ccritical for typical brain development and function,\u201d says Raineki.<\/p>\n

Too many bad microbes in the gut \u2014 most commonly caused by poor diet, sleep and physical inactivity \u2014 lead to a host of physical diseases as well as altered brain and immune system development, inflammation in the brain and body, and mental health problems such as depression and anxiety.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are currently recruiting adults with FASD and unexposed controls to evaluate their mental health status and collect fecal samples to assess their gut microbiota composition,” Raineki says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re doing this study because we want to find out if the alterations in the gut microbiota composition is mediating the increased risk for mental health problems in individuals with FASD.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team is also exploring, through animal models, if and how drugs and fecal microbiota transplantation could increase gut health.<\/p>\n

Fecal microbiota transplantation involves introducing stool from healthy donors into the intestinal tract of a recipient to re-colonize the gut with healthy microbiota. This procedure has been successfully used in individuals affected by various gastrointestinal disorders and is being considered as a possible treatment in many neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders.<\/p>\n

In addition to their NIH-funded research, Raineki and Bodnar are currently heading up an international research team studying how prenatal<\/a> alcohol exposure affects children\u2019s immune function and gut microbiota.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis research will provide novel insights into the possible role of gut microbiome in immune system alterations and increased risk for mental health problems following prenatal alcohol exposure and will inform future clinical strategies for improving long-term health and well-being in individuals with FASD,\u201d says Raineki.<\/p>\n

The content of this article is<\/em> solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Almost everyone living with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) will experience depression, anxiety or other mental health challenge at some point in their lives. Increasingly, these conditions are being linked to what\u2019s happening in their gut, says Charlis Raineki, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Brock University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":87170,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7484,7,1,5,38],"tags":[2407,11752,546,12822,7313,12823,12819,12820,11757,10378,12821,2717,12824,3325,12818,6172],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87169"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87169"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87175,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87169\/revisions\/87175"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}