ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2024
Social anxiety disorder-associated gut microbiota increases social fear.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2024. 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 38 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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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
38 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 57 citations in OpenAlex.
- Fecal microbiota transplantation from psychiatric patients to mice - systematic review of methodologies and a call for standardization.Translational psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- Encapsulated faecal microbiota transfer in young women with anorexia nervosa: an open-label feasibility pilot trial.Nature communications · 2025Trial
- The Interactions Between Circadian Rhythm, Gut Microbiota, and Anxiety: From Mechanisms to Intervention Strategies.Nutrients · 2026Review
- Plasma short-chain fatty acid concentrations in social anxiety disorder and changes after cognitive behavioral therapy.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Fecal Microbiota Transplantation From Patients With Social Anxiety Disorder Is Associated With General Anxiety-Like Behavior and Gut Microbiota Alterations in Mice.Brain and behavior · 2026Article
- Electroacupuncture prevents CUMS induced depressive-like behaviors by inhibiting microglia-mediated synaptic pruning induced by gut dysbiosis.Chinese medicine · 2026Article
- The gut microbiome shapes social behaviour across animal species.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2026Review
- Article
- Human Microbiota-Associated Pig Models for Translational Microbiome Research: A Scoping Review.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- The prairie vole gut-brain-microbiota-axis: a narrative review.Gut microbiome (Cambridge, England) · 2026Review
- Beyond the 'second brain': the gut microbiota as a constitutive co-constructor of embodied cognitive network.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Review
- Gut microbiota and pre-competitive anxiety in high-performance taekwondo athletes during pre-competition training: an exploratory pilot study.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Article
- Microbiota-gut-brain axis in avian parenting: gut microbiome associates with nest-construction behavior and neural gene expression in a songbird.Animal microbiome · 2025Article
- The mouse gut microbiota responds to predator odor and predicts host behavior.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- 'It takes a village': deciphering the role of the gut microbiome in the health and performance of military personnel.BMJ military health · 2025Review
- From Bacillus Criminalis to the Legalome: Will Neuromicrobiology Impact 21st Century Criminal Justice?Brain sciences · 2025Article
- Article
- Multi-kingdom microbiota analysis reveals bacteria-viral interplay in IBS with depression and anxiety.NPJ biofilms and microbiomes · 2025Article
- Gut Feelings: How Microbes, Diet, and Host Immunity Shape Disease.Biomedicines · 2025Review
- The Gut Microbiome in Anxiety Disorders.Current psychiatry reports · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
23 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is a crippling psychiatric disorder characterized by intense fear or anxiety in social situations and their avoidance. However, the underlying biology of SAD is unclear and better treatments are needed. Recently, the gut microbiota has emerged as a key regulator of both brain and behaviour, especially those related to social function. Moreover, increasing data supports a role for immune function and oxytocin signalling in social responses. To investigate whether the gut microbiota plays a causal role in modulating behaviours relevant to SAD, we transplanted the microbiota from SAD patients, which was identified by 16S rRNA sequencing to be of a differential composition compared to healthy controls, to mice. Although the mice that received the SAD microbiota had normal behaviours across a battery of tests designed to assess depression and general anxiety-like behaviours, they had a specific heightened sensitivity to social fear, a model of SAD. This distinct heightened social fear response was coupled with changes in central and peripheral immune function and oxytocin expression in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis. This work demonstrates an interkingdom basis for social fear responses and posits the microbiome as a potential therapeutic target for SAD.
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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.