The Brain Might Also Have a Microbiome
c0lo writes:
The microbes that live in your gut are having their moment in the sun. Even if you haven't been following the research, you can't have missed the hundreds of adverts for probiotics and prebiotics, aimed at selling you products to keep your microbiome healthy.
Other microbiomes have also recently been discovered, and these too play an important role in your health. Your mouth, nasal cavity, skin and scalp all have their own unique microbiomes. Some have even proposed that the brain has its own microbiome.
The idea that the brain has a microbiome was first suggested in 2013, but it didn't get much attention. This is mostly due to the longstanding belief that the brain is a sterile organ, shielded from the rest of the body and from harmful agents that are circulating in our blood.
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In healthy brains, the so-called "blood-brain barrier" shields the brain from the blood and any harmful substances dissolved in it. However, during ageing and in neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, this protective barrier becomes leaky and blood and harmful substances can enter the brain.[...] A group of researchers from the University of Edinburgh compared the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease to healthy brains. The brains of people with Alzheimer's harboured more bacteria and fungi than healthy people. But they did find several species of fungi, bacteria and other microorganisms in healthy brains.
The human brain microbiome was found to be a subset (about 20%) of the gut microbiome. Although more bacteria were found in the brains of people with Alzheimer's, the researchers were not able to find a pattern of certain bacteria that were only found in diseased brains. However, this study has yet to be peer-reviewed and published in a scientific journal, so the results should be treated with some caution.
DOI: 10.1101/2023.02.06.527297
An excellent overview as a 12 mins vid on the topic
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