Stress-Resilience Impacts Psychological Wellbeing: Evidence from Brain-Gut Microbiome Interactions

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Microbiome research
• Psychiatry

Background:

• The brain-gut-microbiome (BGM) system is increasingly recognized for its role in mental health.
• Understanding the biological underpinnings of psychological resilience is crucial for developing targeted interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To characterize the brain-gut-microbiome (BGM) patterns associated with a high resilience phenotype.
• To investigate the relationship between microbiome function, metabolites, neural activity, and psychological symptoms.

Main Methods:

• Fecal samples and multimodal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) were used to analyze BGM patterns.
• Data integration analysis using latent components was employed to identify resilience-associated signatures.

Main Results:

• High resilience was linked to specific bacterial transcriptomes (environmental adaptation, energy metabolism, anti-inflammation), increased metabolites (N-acetylglutamate, dimethylglycine), and distinct cortical signatures.
• Neural correlates included increased connectivity in reward circuits and decreased grey matter in emotion regulation networks.
• Bacterial transcriptomes showed the highest accuracy in classifying resilience phenotypes.

Conclusions:

• A multi-omic signature involving the BGM system supports psychological resilience, impacting emotion regulation and cognitive function.
• Microbiome function, supporting eubiosis and gut barrier integrity, is critical for resilience.
• Modifications to the microbiome hold potential for optimizing mental health.