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Enhancing gut-brain communication reversed cognitive decline in aging mice

med.stanford.edu

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Re: Enhancing gut-brain communication reversed cognitive decline in aging mice

#61

Post by random3 »

XorNot wrote: post #37
zinkem wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this research is totally true-- I had a lot of memories come back after 1. I stopped drinking heavily and using other drugs, i.e. marijuana 2. managed my diet to avoid heartburn without medication 3. schedule my meals so it was easier to sleep at night (always eat something for breakfast when I wake up) I did not need any "poo infusion" or anything. I had a gal bladder removal that didn't fix the problems t…

Your hypothesis here though is full of complicating factors. For example >I stopped drinking heavily and using other drugs, i.e. marijuana Like the primary change you made was to cut out using a whole bunch of drugs with known, significant neurological effects.

I think the "and" is for "stopped (both) A and B"

Re: Enhancing gut-brain communication reversed cognitive decline in aging mice

#62

Post by Aurornis »

zinkem wrote: post #28
inanutshellus wrote: post #9

Everyone's "poo-pooing" the article because the title doesn't mention mice, but, FWIW, stories of gut biota affecting humans behavior have been documented for a while. Memory gain is noteworthy, which is the article's "wow" factor, but everyone's just knee-jerk smirking so ... here's a few random articles to gross you out about the wild world of trading microbiota and, for better or worse, changing your personality:…

I believe this research is totally true-- I had a lot of memories come back after 1. I stopped drinking heavily and using other drugs, i.e. marijuana 2. managed my diet to avoid heartburn without medication 3. schedule my meals so it was easier to sleep at night (always eat something for breakfast when I wake up) I did not need any "poo infusion" or anything. I had a gal bladder removal that didn't fix the problems t…

> 1. I stopped drinking heavily and using other drugs, i.e. marijuana

Heavy alcohol use and marijuana are both known to impact memory and recall directly.

Discontinuing both of those explains changes in memory. Attributing this to microbiome changes does not follow.

Re: Enhancing gut-brain communication reversed cognitive decline in aging mice

#63

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

y-curious wrote: post #30
zinkem wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this research is totally true-- I had a lot of memories come back after 1. I stopped drinking heavily and using other drugs, i.e. marijuana 2. managed my diet to avoid heartburn without medication 3. schedule my meals so it was easier to sleep at night (always eat something for breakfast when I wake up) I did not need any "poo infusion" or anything. I had a gal bladder removal that didn't fix the problems t…

What did you do for heartburn? Just looking for ideas. I noticed reducing gluten helped me personally a lot

My "chronic" acid reflux disappeared at USMC boot camp so...exercise, no snacking, no alcohol, and rigid sleep schedule?

Re: Enhancing gut-brain communication reversed cognitive decline in aging mice

#64

Post by Aurornis »

bitexploder wrote: post #60
inanutshellus wrote: post #9

Everyone's "poo-pooing" the article because the title doesn't mention mice, but, FWIW, stories of gut biota affecting humans behavior have been documented for a while. Memory gain is noteworthy, which is the article's "wow" factor, but everyone's just knee-jerk smirking so ... here's a few random articles to gross you out about the wild world of trading microbiota and, for better or worse, changing your personality:…

Most of the serotonin we produce comes from our gut.

Serotonin produced in the gut doesn’t get into your brain.

This factoid is repeated everywhere but it’s misleading without knowing that gut serotonin is a different pool than brain serotonin and they have different functions.

The brain synthesizes its serotonin locally within the brain.

Re: Enhancing gut-brain communication reversed cognitive decline in aging mice

#66

Post by Aurornis »

hbcondo714 wrote: post #10
inanutshellus wrote: post #9

Everyone's "poo-pooing" the article because the title doesn't mention mice, but, FWIW, stories of gut biota affecting humans behavior have been documented for a while. Memory gain is noteworthy, which is the article's "wow" factor, but everyone's just knee-jerk smirking so ... here's a few random articles to gross you out about the wild world of trading microbiota and, for better or worse, changing your personality:…

I would recommend the site https://gutbrainaxistherapeutics.com for learning more about Microbiota Transplant Therapy (MTT) and its opportunities, especially for Autism and Pitt-Hopkins Syndrome.

I would not recommend that site as a good resource.

Microbiome transplant therapy is a domain full of grifters right now who will push it to vulnerable populations desperate for hope, like parents of autistic children. The real research results are much less promising for difficult conditions.

Re: Enhancing gut-brain communication reversed cognitive decline in aging mice

#67

Post by bitexploder »

kseniamorph wrote: post #31

i like how this research (and others related) kind of supports the idea that free will might be lacking. I still keep a pinch of skepticism about this idea, understanding that it's just a concept. But personally i like it, because it even fells a bit relieving... not to say that it helps you abandon responsibility, but it makes your stance on life easier, and pushes you not to blame yourself too much for your weaknes…

What is free will? In Friston’s predictive processing framework, free will isn’t a force that stands outside the brain and overrides it… it’s what the system calls the experience of higher level predictions outcompeting lower-level ones. The brain is a hierarchical prediction machine constantly minimizing surprise, and what feels like a decision is the resolution of competing models, where your prefrontal self model of who you are and what matters generates a stronger attractor than the opposing signal. The sense of “I chose this” is likely a post hoc narrative the DMN constructs after the resolution has already occurred.. agency as story rather than cause. There’s no ghost in the machine, just a very sophisticated model of a self that includes the prediction that it can choose.

Through the vagus nerve and serotonin availability, a dysbiotic gut amplifies lower level threat and conservation signals, making them harder for higher level prefrontal predictions to outcompete. What feels like weakness of will may partly be the system running on a degraded substrate… the DMN then constructs a story about discipline and character over a causal chain that started in the enteric nervous system.

So, you can’t even really perceive some of this. But you essentially can’t overcome it either. The decisions are made before you thought about it.

Re: Enhancing gut-brain communication reversed cognitive decline in aging mice

#68

Post by Aurornis »

esperent wrote: post #49
slibhb wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion, gut microbiome stuff is massively overhyped. Here's a study that tried fecal transplants to treat mental illness (and found no effect): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41785480/ The pattern with this stuff is that, when a blinded study is carried out, there's usually no effect.

Here's a meta analysis of 12 studies showing that FMT has a significant effect in reducing depression: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12536323/ It also found the effect was greater in people with IBS.

This meta-analysis isn’t very convincing. Most of the studies included were primarily about other measures like IBS, COVID-related GI symptoms, or Fibromyalgia. Improving GI problems would be expected to improve mood.

The positive result is heavily driven by an outlier study on Fibromyalgia that has results that look a little too suspicious relative to the other studies.

Re: Enhancing gut-brain communication reversed cognitive decline in aging mice

#69

Post by Aurornis »

butILoveLife wrote: post #48
slibhb wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion, gut microbiome stuff is massively overhyped. Here's a study that tried fecal transplants to treat mental illness (and found no effect): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41785480/ The pattern with this stuff is that, when a blinded study is carried out, there's usually no effect.

You are probably right on the specifics, but serotonin is produced/located in the gut, and its an incredibly important neurotransmitter. One day people will figure out how to use these correctly.

> but serotonin is produced/located in the gut, and its an incredibly important neurotransmitter.

Serotonin in the gut doesn’t go to your brain. It serves a different function in the gut.

The brain synthesizes serotonin inside of the brain. It doesn’t come from your gut.

Re: Enhancing gut-brain communication reversed cognitive decline in aging mice

#70

Post by Aurornis »

mustaphah wrote: post #14

Yeah, it's a mouse study, but there are tons of human studies backing the whole gut-brain connection. There are even a bunch of books on it [1][2]. What's really cool is that the paper used low-dose capsaicin (just 5 μg/kg injected), and it completely restored hippocampal FOS activity and memory in older mice. Basically, that's the same stuff you get in cayenne pepper supplements - pretty easy to get your hands on. […

> What's really cool is that the paper used low-dose capsaicin (just 5 μg/kg injected), and it completely restored hippocampal FOS activity and memory in older mice.

There are countless papers published where simple ingredients produce miracles in mice. Most of them don’t replicate.

If you look up most food ingredients you can find someone, somewhere claiming to have used it to produce amazing outcomes in mice. After you read a lot of those you learn not to take individual papers seriously if the claims seem too good to be true.

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