Antibiotics strong enough to kill off gut bacteria can also stop the growth of new brain cells in the hippocampus—a section of the brain associated with memory, recent study shows.
After giving a group of mice a substantial amount of antibiotics for them to become nearly free of intestinal microbes, researchers found out that the mice who lost their healthy gut bacteria performed worse in memory tests and showed a loss of new brain cells.
In the future, researchers hope to investigate whether probiotic treatments will improve symptoms in patients with neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders.
