Gut microbiome in neuropsychiatric disorders.

Background: Neuropsychiatric disorders are a significant cause of death and disability worldwide. The mechanisms underlying these disorders include a constellation of structural, infectious, immunological, metabolic, and genetic etiologies. Advances in next-generation sequencing techniques have demonstrated that the composition of the enteric microbiome is dynamic and plays a pivotal role in host homeostasis and several diseases.

Gut-microbiota-directed strategies to treat epilepsy: clinical and experimental evidence.

A growing appreciation that the intestinal microbiota might exert changes on the central nervous system via the gut-brain has emerged as a new research frontier in neurological disorders. Moreover, new approaches for studying and manipulating the gut microbiome, including metabolomics and faecal microbiota transplantation, have highlighted the tremendous potential that microbes have on neuroinflammation, metabolic, and neuroendocrine signaling pathways. Despite the large proliferation of studies in animal models examining the linkage between microbial disequilibrium and epilepsy, intestinal profiles at a functional level in humans have remained scarce.