Bifidobacterium longum 1714™ Strain Modulates Brain Activity of Healthy Volunteers During Social Stress.

"CONFLICTS OF INTEREST Guarantor of the article: Paul Enck, PhD. Specific author contributions: P.E.: inception of the study and publication of the work. H.W.: contributed to the design of the study, data collection and analysis, drafting of the manuscript, and critical revisions of the manuscript. C.B., E.M., and P.E.: contributed to the design of the study, data analysis, and critical revisions of the manuscript. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript. 1714, 1714-serenitas and Zenflore are trademarks of Alimentary Health. Financial support: The research leading to these results has received funding from the People Programme of the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme under REA grant agreement no. 607652 (NeuroGut). Potential competing interests: E.M. is the Technical Director at Alimentary Health Group. Alimentary Health provided the placebo and probiotic containing the B. longum 1714™ strain (also known as 1714-Serenitas), but had no further influence on data collection and data evaluation. P.E. is a consultant for Alimentary Health. The other authors declare no potential conflicts of interest. Study HighlightsWHAT IS KNOWN✓ Accumulating evidence indicates that the gut microbiota communicates with the CNS, possibly through neural, endocrine, and immune pathways, and influences brain function.✓ Effects of probiotics on the CNS functions are strain specific.✓ B. longum 1714™ has been shown to reduce stress-related behaviors in preclinical studies and improve stress responses and cognitive function in healthy volunteers.WHAT IS NEW HERE✓ B. longum 1714™ altered brain activity of healthy volunteers during social stress as measured by neuroimaging method MEG with high temporal resolution and fine spatial resolution.✓ B. longum 1714™ influenced resting neural activities associated with enhanced vitality and stress-related neural responses, which may be involved in the counter-regulation of negative emotions.✓ Our results further support the role of B. longum 1714™ in reducing stress responses in humans and provides new evidence that this probiotic strain affects brain function through modulating neural oscillations in brain regions involved in emotional regulation."

"Financial support: The research leading to these results has received funding from the People Programme of the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme under REA grant agreement no. 607652 (NeuroGut)."

"Healthy adults were recruited to the study. Criteria for inclusion were (i) man or woman aged 18–50 years; (ii) nonsmoker for at least 3 months; (iii) a body mass index of 18–30; (iv) no chronic allergies; (v) willing to discontinue their normal consumption of probiotics and probiotic-containing foods or potentially immune-enhancing dietary supplements; (vi) receiving no immune-suppressing intervention and not having any immunosuppressive illness within the past year; (vii) receiving no antibiotic therapy within the past 2 months; (viii) having no chronic psychiatric or gastrointestinal disorder; and (ix) having no nonremovable metal parts in the body. Informed consent was obtained from all participants before joining the study. Participants were screened for IBS and psychiatric disorders using the Rome III criteria () and the Patient Health Questionnaire (). During the intervention period, participants were instructed to avoid consumption of food containing probiotics/prebiotics or potentially immune-enhancing dietary supplements. This was supported by providing them with a list of “prohibited” foods (see Information 1, Supplementary Digital Content 1, http://links.lww.com/AJG/A163). Demographic and baseline psychological information was also recorded. The protocol was approved by the Ethics Board of the University of Tübingen Medical School (No. 503/2015BO1, as of August 26, 2015) and registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (identifier No. NCT02793193)."