Can a baby's gut health impact their brain development?
Written by Cindy Hovington, Ph.D. Founder of Curious Neuron and host of the Curious Neuron Podcast
Montreal, Canada
What is the gut-microbiome (or microbiota)?
Have you ever been so nervous that you had “butterflies in your stomach” or you felt nauseous? Researchers have learned that our gut and brain are connected! There are nerves connecting our brain and gut and they are called the microbiome-gut-brain axis. Researchers are realizing how much of an impact these microbiomes have on our health. Microbiomes are microbes or bacteria that live in our gut. The four dominant bacterial phyla in the human gut are Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria, and Proteobacteria.
The composition of these microbiota seems to play a huge role in our health. The first year of an infant's life seems to be when these microbiota form and develop and reach the composition of an adult. Mice kept in isolation and in a completely germ-free environment have poor composition, meaning they don’t have enough microbiota in their gut. Some experiences such as a vaginal delivery, seems to give a baby a boost in the number of microbiota. Being breast milk seems to have the greatest impact in building a healthy gut in a baby. However, research is still in its infant stage when it comes to the gut microbiome and some questions remain unclear such as whether taking probiotics at a young age actually helps build up a child’s gut microbiome.
What we learned from this study:Gut Microbiome in babies may be linked to their cognitive development.
This study by Carlson (2018) wanted to see if there was a relationship between the type of microbiota in a baby and their thinking skills (known as cognitive development). This was the first study to look at babies! 89 1 year-old babies were tested and re-assessed at 2 years old. Microbiome analysis was conducted by testing fecal material from the baby’s diaper (yup…poop!). Cognitive skills were assessed using the Mullen test, an IQ test for babies with 5 scales that measure gross motor, fine motor, visual reception, expressive language, and receptive language skills. Babies then went into an MRI scan to have their brain scanned.
Researchers found that there was a variation in gut microbiome among the babies. A higher the level of bacteria of certain clusters including, Faecalibacterium, Bacteroides, and Ruminococcaceae, was linked to babies with higher thinking abilities (higher scores on the Mullen Test). No structural differences were seen from their brain scans. This is fresh research so we don’t know why or how this happens.
Take home message.
A babies environment is important to their gut health. Given the novelty in this field of research, we still can’t make any conclusions in terms of recommendations, however, we know that having pets seems to improve the composition of a babies gut microbiome.
