Page 440 - Total War on PTSD_FINAL

microbiome-gut-brain axis, as it is referenced, is attempting to solve the riddles of how gut bacteria within the microbiota may affect our mental/physical states. Using fecal transplants and other research designs with both mice and human subjects, the edges of the puzzle are beginning to form. A decade ago, this idea was seen by scientists as hogwash and was emphatically rejected, but now international researchers are peering into the microbes within our microbiome to isolate specific ones that might correlate with certain diseases.
They do know that the microbiome-gut-brain axis is a circular process and can be impacted at either end, resulting in a variety of interesting hypotheses; it is bi-directional. Therefore changes in attitude and mental states may affect the microbiome, just as the microbiome affects our psychological condition.
There are billions of microbes in the gastrointestinal tract. We once assumed that the blood-brain barrier limited access to the brain. Now we know that bacteria in the gut create metabolites that can circulate across the barrier. According to Bergland (2016) we understand that the barrier is penetrable and the brain is highly impacted by microbes from the gut: the pathways are achieved through blood flow and through the vagus nerve, known as the “wandering nerve”, the longest cranial nerve that travels from the brain stem through the neck and into the chest and abdomen, enervating the heart, major blood vessels, airways, lungs, esophagus, stomach and intestines. It controls the parasympathetic part of the nervous system that regulates among other things our ability to “rest and digest” as opposed to the sympathetic which drives the “fight-or-flight” response (Bergland, 2016).
440 of 837