Fear Control

Gut microbes control fear in mice Chemicals released by bacteria in the gut seem to influence how mice recover from fear — an ability linked to chronic anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. Mice that were trained that a certain sound meant a painful shock were able to forget the association after some time with a painless version of the tone. But mice treated with antibiotics to wipe out the microbiome were never able to get over the learned fear. When researchers looked closer, the bacteria-free mice had changes to their brains and different chemicals flooding their bodies. Science | 5 min readReference: Nature paper