ArticlePloS one2017
The Gut-Brain Axis in Healthy Females: Lack of Significant Association between Microbial Composition and Diversity with Psychiatric Measures.
Article in PloS one, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 25 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 54 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Role of the Gut Microbiota in the Development and Progression of Major Depressive and Bipolar Disorder.Nutrients · 2021Pooled it
- Effect of calf separation on gut microbiome and fecal metabolome of mother in the captive Yangtze finless porpoise (Neophocaena asiaeorientalis asiaeorientalis).International microbiology : the official journal of the Spanish Society for Microbiology · 2025Article
- Gut microbiota and the tryptophan-kynurenine pathway in anxiety: new insights and treatment strategies.Journal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996) · 2025Review
- A pharmacovigilance study on probiotic preparations based on the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System from 2005 to 2023.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2025Article
- Diet quality and anxiety: a critical overview with focus on the gut microbiome.Frontiers in nutrition · 2024Article
- Identification of intestinal and fecal microbial biomarkers using a porcine social stress model.Frontiers in microbiology · 2023Article
- Gut microbiota in anxiety and depression: Pathogenesis and therapeutics.Frontiers in gastroenterology (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Stress gets into the belly: Early life stress and the gut microbiome.Behavioural brain research · 2021Review
- The Potential Impact of Selected Bacterial Strains on the Stress Response.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
- Depression in Individuals Coinfected with HIV and HCV Is Associated with Systematic Differences in the Gut Microbiome and Metabolome.mSystems · 2020Article
- Review
- Gut microbiome composition and diversity are related to human personality traits.Human microbiome journal · 2020Article
- Finding intestinal fortitude: Integrating the microbiome into a holistic view of depression mechanisms, treatment, and resilience.Neurobiology of disease · 2020Review
- The Gut Microbiome in Anorexia Nervosa: Friend or Foe?Frontiers in psychiatry · 2020Review
- Reconceptualizing anorexia nervosa.Psychiatry and clinical neurosciences · 2019Review
- Gastrointestinal microbiota alteration induced by Mucor circinelloides in a murine model.Journal of microbiology (Seoul, Korea) · 2019Article
- The Role of the Gut Microbiota in Sustained Weight Loss Following Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass Surgery.Obesity surgery · 2019Article
- Human Milk Microbiome and Maternal Postnatal Psychosocial Distress.Frontiers in microbiology · 2019Article
- Environmental Factors Modify the Severity of Acute DSS Colitis in Caspase-11-Deficient Mice.Inflammatory bowel diseases · 2018Article
- Intestinal microbiome-gut-brain axis and irritable bowel syndrome.Wiener medizinische Wochenschrift (1946) · 2018Review
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
9 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveThis study examined associations between the composition and diversity of the intestinal microbiota and measures of depression, anxiety, eating disorder psychopathology, stress, and personality in a group of healthy adult females.
methodsFemale participants (n = 91) ages 19-50 years with BMI 18.5-25 kg/m2 were recruited from central North Carolina between July 2014 and March 2015. Participants provided a single fecal sample and completed an online psychiatric questionnaire that included five measures: (i) Beck Anxiety Inventory; (ii) Beck Depression Inventory-II; (iii) Eating Disorder Examination-Questionnaire; (iv) Perceived Stress Scale; and (v) Mini International Personality Item Pool. Bacterial composition and diversity were characterized by Illumina sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene, and associations were examined using Kendall's tau-b correlation coefficient, in conjunction with Benjamini and Hochberg's False Discovery Rate procedure.
resultsWe found no significant associations between microbial markers of gut composition and diversity and scores on psychiatric measures of anxiety, depression, eating-related thoughts and behaviors, stress, or personality in a large cohort of healthy adult females. DISCUSSION: This study was the first specifically to examine associations between the intestinal microbiota and psychiatric measures in healthy females, and based on 16S rRNA taxonomic abundances and diversity measures, our results do not suggest a strong role for the enteric microbe-gut-brain axis in normal variation on responses to psychiatric measures in this population. However, the role of the intestinal microbiota in the pathophysiology of psychiatric illness may be limited to more severe psychopathology.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.