Topic: antibiotics-mediated gut microbiota depletion

We live in a microbial world with trillions of microbes in and around us helping to digest food and regulating the immune system. Emerging data also suggest the critical influence of the gut microbiota on the brain impacting on behaviour and mental health. For example, the absence of gut microbes in experimentally derived germ-free mice results in impaired behaviours including reduced or complete lack of social interactions. Conversely, supplementation of deficient gut microbiota with probiotics and/or specific bacterial strains can restore social function. Despite a surge in such correlative