But for how casually and frequently we reference the gut, few of us know exactly how it works, why it sometimes doesn't or much about its intimate relationship with the brain. Even medical experts have only recently come to appreciate the microbiome's connection to mood, anxiety and neurodegenerative disease. That's because the microbiome is a complex community comprised of trillions of microbes - and every single gut is unique to the specific person. It's an ecosystem as mysterious to us as the deep ocean, or outer space or the brain...which it evidently shares a "communication highway" with.
A recent French study found that a specific species of bacteria can improve maternal behavior in stressed rat mothers. The researchers stressed the rats by putting them in the rat equivalent of a crowded subway car. The stressed rat moms neglected their newborns. But when the scientists put Lactobacillus reuteri into their water, normal maternal behavior was restored.