Brain-gut

Brain-gut system in disease and health

Obesity has a complex and multifactorial etiology, and the limited progress in obesity treatments can in large part be attributed to the failure to apply a systems biology-based approach to understand its pathophysiology and to develop individualized strategies directed at sustained weight loss and prevention. A growing body of preclinical literature has demonstrated bidirectional signaling between the brain-gut microbiome (BGM) system. We have shown that behavioral and brain-based differences related to alterations in specific behaviors and disease (e.g. ingestive behaviors and obesity) may also be related to differences in aspects of the microbiome and inflammatory markers that animal studies have demonstrated.

This work has great potential for understanding and revealing the complex interactions between the gut, brain, and microbiota and inflammatory markers.