Aaron Hartman, MDFunctional Medicine Specialist | Clinical Researcher

Dr Bishara | How Cutting a Gut-Brain Connection Stopped Anxiety in Mice!

18 Sept 2024 · 1 min

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0:37

A short transcript excerpt from a YouTube video by Aaron Hartman, MD (Dr Bishara) describing a mouse experiment where researchers severed the neural connection from the gut to the brain (but not brain→gut) and observed reduced anxiety in many mice. The speaker connects this finding to gut-based alarm signaling and reviews neurotransmitters—mentioning acetylcholine and serotonin and noting dietary tryptophan as a serotonin precursor that can influence mood.

Chapters

Taken mice, and they've severed the connection between the gut and the brain, but not the brain to the gut. And when they did that, they found that a lot of these mice stopped experiencing anxiety, which is interesting. Right? So a lot of times you have this alarm system in your gut that kind of alerts your brain. That's one thing. But then again, we go back to neurotransmitters, and we talk about so many of them. We already discussed acetylcholine, which helps with speed of neurons. But then, you know, another one is serotonin. If you're not eating enough tryptophan, it's a precursor of serotonin, you're not going to make it, and then you're not going to have your mood as. As uplifted as it should.