Published in Frontiers in Neuroscience | DOI: 10.3389, 12, October 2021
Authors: Gabriele Deidda and Manuele Biazzo
Overview
The brain is an extremely complex organ thereby generating a plethora of brain functions. Being so complex, it does not come as a surprise that a number (mostly) of human conditions involve in fact brain dysfunctions. Although experience independent and dependent actors surely influence brain physiology and pathology, over the last decades it became clear that the brain is not alone and the so-called “gut-brain”, composed of the microbial populations living in the gut, does exert control on the brain (dys)functions. Scattered reviews are present in the literature addressing either particular brain disorder or disease, or focusing only on data on either animal models or in humans. In this comprehensive review, we want to give the readers a “big picture” about brain-gut brain relation by spanning the entire brain ontogeny (from brain development to adulthood) reviewing evidence in both animal models and in mankind in different brain disorders and diseases. The aim is to stimulate the discussion and open new research perspectives among experts and non-experts in the understanding of the role of the gut-brain in neurodevelopment and adulthood under physiological and pathological conditions in order to open up new perspectives for therapeutic treatments based on the reinstatement of microbiota balance by means of the use of probiotics.
