3 ms·

I really know very little about this, but I sometimes imagine my body as a society of microbic life, with my mind being a pseudo-democratic governing body. It's

I really know very little about this, but I sometimes imagine my body as a society of microbic life, with my mind being a pseudo-democratic governing body. It's an interesting perspective, were you essentially are responsible for the well-being and perseverance of your billions of law abiding micro-citizens. There are plenty of pop-sci articles about how the microbiome seems to be influencing our nervous system in a multitude of ways. So the microbes may actually have a way to "vote" in my analogy.

tudorw 5y ago
There is certainly lots going on inside, loads of areas of study at the monment look at gut-brain axis (GBA) and stuff like 'Gut bacterial taxonomic abundances vary with cognition, personality, and mood in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study' https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666354620301204 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266635462... 'Highlights • Multiple families, genera, and species were associated with psycho-cognitive traits. • Megamonas is associated with cognition, mood, and personality. • Pseuroramibacter_Eubacterium is associated with mood and personality. • Fusobacterium is associated with personality and cognition. • Butyrivibrio is associated with cognition.' Edit: just to add I'm a layperson so not able to asses the quality of this study, if someone is more able to do that I would welcome the input.
- tudorw 5y ago
  As it's an axis I'd be interested to know if there are any studies looking at effects in the other direction, can our brain modulate the presence of the gut bacteria in some way, it would seem that for a beneficial symbiosis communications may run both ways?