Examining the stress-gut microbiome interface in a human population

Examining the stress-gut microbiome interface in a human population

Diverse symbiotic microbial communities are harbored on and within most eukaryotic host organisms, including humans as “microbiomes”. The human gut microbiome represents one of the best-studied microbial communities in nature. Recent research on the gut has indicated that the microbiome can influence human behavior, metabolism, and disease states. However, it currently remains unclear as to how the diversity in the gut microbiome may affect stress. To address this open question, we sought to sample gut microbiome from two populations of participants: stressed and non-stressed males. Neurobehavioral measures of emotion processing and cognition were assessed through the NIH Toolbox platform and the Joggle cognitive battery, respectively. We observed that biological markers of stress, such as cortisol, were highly correlated with perceived stress and preliminary data show that, overall, neurobehavioral scores were lower in the stressed group relative to the non-stressed group. To correlate gut microbiome diversity with biological and neurobehavioral measures of stress, we are currently using Illumina genomic sequencing to identify abundant genera in fecal samples taken from patients. Overall, our study is the first to examine the correlation between gut-microbiome diversity and stress. Our results may lead to novel mechanisms to reduce stress by rationally perturbing microbial diversity in the human gut.