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Study confirms effect of gut microflora on psychological resilience and anxiety reduction
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
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A recent study published in the journal Nature Mental Health characterized the relationship between patterns of brain-gut microbiome (BGM) interactions and stress resilience.
Resilience is defined as the ability to successfully cope with stressful events and includes acceptance of change, persistence, tolerance of negative emotions, and the ability to recover from stress. Most research focuses on the links between resilience and personality traits, social factors, and behavioral/emotional regulation strategies.
The composition and function of the human microbiome are associated with stress-related disorders. The gut microbiome can modulate psychological functioning through the BGM system and promote stress resilience, suggesting that the microbiome may contain metabolites with potential therapeutic effects. However, no study has elucidated the integrative biological profile of resilience.
In this study, the researchers examined the relationship between resilience and clinical phenomena, neural characteristics, and microbiome function. This was a secondary data study pooled from two previous studies. Participants were recruited from the Los Angeles community.
Individuals with neurological diseases, previous abdominal surgery, psychiatric illnesses, substance abuse, antibiotic/probiotic use, pregnant or lactating women, etc. were excluded.
All participants underwent multispectral magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain, provided stool samples, and completed questionnaires.
The questionnaire data included body mass index (BMI), physical activity, Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), socioeconomic status, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), Positive and Negative Affect Scale, Diet, and Sleep Scale (PROMIS).
Other measures included patient health questionnaires, coping strategies, discrimination assessment, inclination/avoidance behavioral system, five-factor mindfulness scale (FFM), multidimensional self-assessment of abilities (MASQ), pain catastrophizing scale, early trauma scale, visceral sensitivity index, pain vigilance scale, international personality pool (IPIP), and normal personality assessment. DNA was extracted from stool samples for 16S rRNA gene sequencing.
Stool samples were processed and analyzed using the HD4 global metabolomics platform. RNA extraction and metatranscriptome sequencing were performed.
The researchers used the Data Integration for Discovery of Biomarkers (DIABLO) method to identify interactions between clinical/behavioral, central (brain), and peripheral (metabolome, microbiome) markers associated with resistance phenotypes.
A total of 116 participants, including 71 women, participated in the study. There were no significant differences in alpha and beta diversity between the high-resilience (HR) and low-resilience (LR) groups.
The DIABLO analysis revealed a highly correlated omic signature that differentiates individuals with low and high psychological resilience. The variables selected by DIABLO included 45 characteristics (13 clinical, three metabolomic, five resting-state functional MRI, six structural MRI, two diffusion MRI, and 16 transcriptomic variables).
Clinical variables included IPIP neuroticism and extroversion, HADS anxiety and depression, STAI anxiety, MASQ verbal memory, attention, visual perception and language, PSS score, FFM total score, and nonjudgmental and descriptive subscales.
The HR group showed higher mean levels of mindfulness and extroversion, but lower mean levels of neuroticism, anxiety, attention problems, verbal memory, language, visual perception, and stress perception compared to the LR group.
Metabolomic variables included creatine, dimethylglycine (DMG), and N-acetylglutamate (NAG). On average, NAG and DMG levels were higher in the HR group than in the LR group. Creatine levels were similar between groups.
In brief, mean levels of bacterial transcriptomes associated with genetic propagation, anti-inflammation, metabolism, and environmental adaptation were higher in the HR group.
The HR group had lower mean levels of all structural MRI features but higher levels of all functional MRI features at rest.
Among the diffusion MRI features, the HR group showed lower average bilateral subcallosal gyrus connectivity but higher connectivity between the right hippocampus and the right lateral orbital gyrus. Two CD-RISC factors (perseverance and control) showed strong associations with these DIABLO variables.
The study found that several BGM markers could differentiate high-resilience (HR) individuals from low-resilience (LR) individuals. The HR group demonstrated adaptive psychological traits, neural signatures that support cognitive-emotional connections and emotion regulation, and microbiome functions that promote gut health.
In particular, the groups were most distinct in their bacterial transcriptomes. These results suggest that gut microbiome and brain characteristics contribute to stress resilience.