Hypothesis Microbes in mind - New Scientist article

Interesting article in the weeks New Scientist

Microbes in mind

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...crobiome-heres-what-it-means-for-your-health/

The brain has its own microbiome. Here's what it means for your health

Neuroscientists have been surprised to discover that the human brain is teeming with microbes, and we are beginning to suspect they could play a role in neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer's

By David Robson

25 September 2024

In 2015, Nikki Schultek was in her prime: a young mother of two little boys, she had just run a half marathon. Then, a mysterious illness hit. Her asthma, previously well-managed, became increasingly severe. Over the following months, she experienced chronic pain, digestive problems and a cardiac arrhythmia. Then came the “last insult”: signs of neurodegeneration, including brain fog and lapses of memory. “It was the lowest point,” she recalls. “I began making plans for my kids, writing down notes of things that I would want to tell them if I continued to get worse.”

Article continues

 

Interesting, I can’t read the whole article but I wonder if they are already or how long it will be until we do get into the good v bad bacteria side of things?
Microbiomes appear to be very in vogue.

 

This is a slightly different link to the article which might be more accessible:

https://www.newscientist.com/articl...crobiome-heres-what-it-means-for-your-health/

 

They do seem to be.

Perhaps seeing this more as chronic infection(s) / Infectious disease(s) is rather to scary for some to approach or consider......

 

Next paragraph:

"Schultek received various diagnoses for individual problems, but none fully matched her constellation of symptoms. Eventually, one doctor suggested that an undetected infection could lie behind her chronic pain and breathing difficulties. She tested positive for Borrelia burgdorferi and Chlamydia pneumoniae infections and was prescribed a cocktail of antibiotics. On taking them, she found that all her symptoms – including the brain fog and memory deficits – went into remission."

 

"Chlamydia pneumoniae"
came up a few times as being implicated in ME over 20 years ago but not in the brain.

It would be good if more research into what are considered healthy microbiomes are, gut and oral.
I imagine the brain one might be a bit tricky.

eta:
Chlamydia pneumoniae infection a treatable cause of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome | The BMJ
Enterovirus infection of the stomach in chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis | Journal of Clinical Pathology (bmj.com)

 

There are microbes that live in the most restricted clean rooms in the world, including vacuum chambers. Extremophiles everywhere, hot and cold, acidic and basic. There are basically microbes everywhere you look. But somehow actual physicians decided that the brain must be a special snowflake. An assumption that likely predates discovery of those extremophiles and other microbiomes, which shows how stubborn those myths are, even when they're based on illogical assumptions.

It's maddening how so few people see the problem with medical training, how it has become an impediment to progress to train people to think only in authorized boxes, using only concepts approved by a consensus process that is almost always wrong at first. A process that resists every single opportunity to self-correct itself, because the boxes just have to be respected. Sometimes that works, but there's no plan B. It's the boxes or myths.

 

Over 20 years ago I watched a program where a Canadian doctor had evidence that various microbes have been identified in the postmortem brain tissues of human AD patients. Among bacterial pathogens in AD, chlamydia pneumoniae has been well characterized in human AD brains and is a leading candidate for an infectious involvement.

He also had evidence that Cp was implicated in heart disease in some cases and should be treated in the same manner as infection.

 

It’s amazing isn’t it! Did you hear the stories about the microbes on the space station and how they are evolving?

I realised a while back that I mistakenly thought of medical doctors as scientists as they have usually done science things. For the most part they are not, they are more like a mechanic is in relation to an engineer. They need to put things in boxes, that’s how they recognise and categorise common problems quickly and efficiently and fix them with the instructions learned from a manual and experience. This is what most people need and want when they see a doctor.

We need a separate title for the medical scientists/engineers, people who deal with the unknowns, the interesting problems. It requires a very different skillset and attitude. And lumping everything into one category probably does no-one, patients or practitioners much good.

 

There's probably a bias towards denial of brain microbes being involved in medical problems, because it's harder to test for (malpractice risk from breaching the BBB) and harder to treat (BBB again). Much easier to call it FND and prescribe CBT.

 

More like modern mechanics, who connect the diagnostic computer and apply the computer's prescribed treatment ("Replace part X") even though the problem is actually part Y. Old-time mechanics had a better understanding of how the vehicle functioned, combined with experience. The analogy is quite valid, since both professions have been faced with more complexity: cars are vastly more complex (multiple computers, sensors, valves, etc), and we are aware of more of the body's complexity and can't just brush a complaint off as "You're just getting old." or "Some people are born sickly.". If sick people hear that their symptoms match chlamydia in the brain, they'll demand a test for it.

 

Diagnostics for brain infections are woefully bad, startling so. When I think of uncontested chronic brain infections, truly chronic, I think of the likes of neurospyphilis, and I believe tests even for that remain indirect.

If you want direct testing for many of these neuro-infections, unfortunately you'd have to look at animals.

 

New Scientist: Bacteria on the space station are evolving for life in space

There may be a more recent paper than Characterization of metagenome-assembled genomes from the International Space Station (2023, Microbiome)

Closely related —

The human microbiome in space: parallels between Earth-based dysbiosis, implications for long-duration spaceflight, and possible mitigation strategies
Sofia Etlin; Julianna Rose; Luca Bielski; Claire Walter; Ashley S. Kleinman; Christopher E. Mason (Sep 2024)

The human microbiota encompasses the diverse communities of microorganisms that reside in, on, and around various parts of the human body, such as the skin, nasal passages, and gastrointestinal tract. Although research is ongoing, it is well established that the microbiota exert a substantial influence on the body through the production and modification of metabolites and small molecules. Disruptions in the composition of the microbiota—dysbiosis—have also been linked to various negative health outcomes. As humans embark upon longer-duration space missions, it is important to understand how the conditions of space travel impact the microbiota and, consequently, astronaut health.

This article will first characterize the main taxa of the human gut microbiota and their associated metabolites, before discussing potential dysbiosis and negative health consequences. It will also detail the microbial changes observed in astronauts during spaceflight, focusing on gut microbiota composition and pathogenic virulence and survival. Analysis will then turn to how astronaut health may be protected from adverse microbial changes via diet, exercise, and antibiotics before concluding with a discussion of the microbiota of spacecraft and microbial culturing methods in space. The implications of this review are critical, particularly with NASA’s ongoing implementation of the Moon to Mars Architecture, which will include weeks or months of living in space and new habitats.

Link | PDF (Clinical Microbiology Reviews)

Spoiler: Also

Spaceflight alters host-gut microbiota interactions (2024, Nature npj Biofilms and Microbiomes)

Longitudinal multi-omics analysis of host microbiome architecture and immune responses during short-term spaceflight (2024, Nature Microbiology)

Cardiovascular changes under the microgravity environment and the gut microbiome (2024, Life Sciences in Space Research)

Human gut microbiome and metabolite dynamics under simulated microgravity (2023, Gut Microbes)

The NASA Twins Study: A multidimensional analysis of a year-long human spaceflight (2019, Science)

 

Thanks @SNT Gatchaman
I’m fascinated by the changes our bodies undergo in space and the Twins studies have been really interesting. It would be ironic if some of the changes seen which previously put down to deconditioning were something else wouldn’t it?

While we’re looking for life out there we are undoubtedly taking other life with us. And the numbers and rate of evolution of those bacteria and viruses is orders of magnitude beyond what we humans are capable of. So the first alien life we encounter could be said to be from Earth.. Adapting to that is yet another challenge.

 

Think of how many microbes got blasted into space by the Cretaceous asteroid strike. Did any land on one of those ice/water moons in the system and find suitable conditions for reproducing? Unless the discovered life uses different amino acids or otherwise is radically different from Earth-based life, it's probably some distant relations of ours.

 

High carbon dioxide(CO2) levels can be 20x higher on the ISS than earth so that the bacteria experience have forced them to evolve into a kind of super-bacteria- high survival rate.