Links between babies' microbiome and brain development hinted in new research

In a small, exploratory study, levels of certain types of microbes in babies' guts were shown to be associated with performance in tests of early cognitive development.

The researchers analyzed data from 56 infants aged four to six months. The infants had each completed at least one of three evaluations of various cognitive abilities, and the researchers evaluated their gut microbiomes using faecal samples.

They found that infants who succeeded at a test of social attention known as “point and gaze”—which measures the ability to share a focus on an object with another person—tended to have higher amounts of microbes in the Actinobacteria phylum, the genus Bifidobacterium, and the genus Eggerthella, and lower amounts of microbes in the Firmicutes phylum, the Hungatella genus, and the Streptococcus genus.

Meanwhile, electroencephalogram measurements of infants’ brain activity in response to hearing a steady beat showed that certain patterns of activity linked to better rhythmic processing were associated with higher or lower levels of certain microbe types, as well as with levels of certain metabolic chemical reactions involving microbes that prior studies have linked to brain and spinal cord development.

Reference: Hunter S, Flaten E, Petersen C, Gervain J, Werker JF, Trainor LJ, et al. (2023) Babies, bugs and brains: How the early microbiome associates with infant brain and behaviour development. PLoS ONE 18(8): e0288689. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288689