Describe how microbial communities in the body could influence brain and mental health states. Then, describe how brain and mental health states could influence microbial communities in the body. In what ways might these promote health and/or disease?
Human body is full of microbia, and those microbial communities influence our health in both mentally and physically ways. There’re numerous nerve connect between our gut directly to our brain, which mean the microbes that live in our guts could have a strong effect to our brain with their neurotransmitter production and metabolism. According to the reading for this week, those neurotransmitter hormones could trigger the change in our brain gene expression and resulting in mental health disease.
In additional, brain could also have control on our microbial communities in our body from the same signal pathway, which is form the nerve system and hormone. When individual is stress, their brain will release a certain hormone that will decrease activity of specific microbes in our body. One example hormone is the cortisol, it’s produced by the adrenal glands when people experience stress, and this kind of hormone will affect different kinds of microbes’ metabolic causing the change in blood sugar level, appetite, or even immune response.
In conclusion, having a health metal health could reduce the risk of negative affect on our physical health. Reduce stress time to time can help our microbes maintain their metabolic activity and population, which will benefit our health.
