Antibiotics that kill gut bacteria also stop growth of new brain cell, May 19, 2016
Summary
Antibiotics, though remarkably useful, can also cause certain adverse effects. We detected that treatment of adult mice with antibiotics decreases hippocampal neurogenesis and memory retention. Reconstitution with normal gut flora (SPF) did not completely reverse the deficits in neurogenesis unless the mice also had access to a running wheel or received probiotics. In parallel to an increase in neurogenesis and memory retention, both SPF-reconstituted mice that ran and mice supplemented with probiotics exhibited higher numbers of Ly6Chi monocytes in the brain than antibiotic-treated mice. Elimination of Ly6Chi monocytes by antibody depletion or the use of knockout mice resulted in decreased neurogenesis, whereas adoptive transfer of Ly6Chimonocytes rescued neurogenesis after antibiotic treatment. We propose that the rescue of neurogenesis and behavior deficits in antibiotic-treated mice by exercise and probiotics is partially mediated by Ly6Chi monocytes.

"...."It was surprising that the normal fecal transplant recovered the broad gut bacteria, but did not recover neurogenesis," says Wolf. "This might be a hint towards direct effects of antibiotics on neurogenesis without using the detour through the gut. To decipher this we might treat germ free mice without gut flora with antibiotics and see what is different."
In the future, researchers also hope to see more clinical trials investigating whether probiotic treatments will improve symptoms in patients with neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders."We could measure the outcome in mood, psychiatric symptoms, microbiome composition and immune cell function before and after probiotic treatment," says Wolf..." http://www.cell.com/cell-reports/pdf/S2211-1247(16)30518-6.pdf