ArticlePloS one2023
Babies, bugs and brains: How the early microbiome associates with infant brain and behavior development.
Article in PloS one, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- Trial
- The putative role of the microbiota in the development of neuropsychiatric disorders following early childhood malnutrition.Gut microbes · 2026Review
- The relationship between the gut microbiota and neuropsychological development and behaviour during childhood and adolescence: a systematic review of epidemiological studies.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2026Review
- A case-control analysis: changes in gut microbiota composition in children with autism spectrum disorder.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Article
- Investigating Generalizability of Top-Down Neural Representation of Meter in Infancy.Journal of cognitive neuroscience · 2025Article
- Differential microRNAs and metabolites in the breast milk of mothers with adverse childhood experiences.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- Gut microbiome is associated with insula structure in neonates.Physiology & behavior · 2025Article
- Gut Microbiota and Autism Spectrum Disorders: Neurodevelopmental, Behavioral, and Gastrointestinal Interactions.Nutrients · 2025Article
- Evaluation of Faecal Microbiota Following Probiotics in Infants of Mothers with Gestational Diabetes Mellitus Trial: Protocol for Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Randomized Trial.Microorganisms · 2025Article
- Relationships of Personality Traits With the Taxonomic Composition of the Gut Microbiome Among Psychiatric Inpatients.The Journal of neuropsychiatry and clinical neurosciences · 2025Article
- The neonatal gut microbiota: A role in the encephalopathy of prematurity.Cell reports. Medicine · 2024Article
- Role of Human Milk Microbiota in Infant Neurodevelopment: Mechanisms and Clinical Implications.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Exploring the memory of the gut microbiome: a multifaceted perspective.Frontiers in microbiomes · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Growing evidence is demonstrating the connection between the microbiota gut-brain axis and neurodevelopment. Microbiota colonization occurs before the maturation of many neural systems and is linked to brain health. Because of this it has been hypothesized that the early microbiome interactions along the gut-brain axis evolved to promote advanced cognitive functions and behaviors. Here, we performed a pilot study with a multidisciplinary approach to test if the microbiota composition of infants is associated with measures of early cognitive development, in particular neural rhythm tracking; language (forward speech) versus non-language (backwards speech) discrimination; and social joint attention. Fecal samples were collected from 56 infants between four and six months of age and sequenced by shotgun metagenomic sequencing. Of these, 44 performed the behavioral Point and Gaze test to measure joint attention. Infants were tested on either language discrimination using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS; 25 infants had usable data) or neural rhythm tracking using electroencephalogram (EEG; 15 had usable data). Infants who succeeded at the Point and Gaze test tended to have increased Actinobacteria and reduced Firmicutes at the phylum level; and an increase in Bifidobacterium and Eggerthella along with a reduction in Hungatella and Streptococcus at the genus level. Measurements of neural rhythm tracking associated negatively to the abundance of Bifidobacterium and positively to the abundance of Clostridium and Enterococcus for the bacterial abundances, and associated positively to metabolic pathways that can influence neurodevelopment, including branched chain amino acid biosynthesis and pentose phosphate pathways. No associations were found for the fNIRS language discrimination measurements. Although the tests were underpowered due to the small pilot sample sizes, potential associations were identified between the microbiome and measurements of early cognitive development that are worth exploring further.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.