Loss of eating control and cognitive flexibility: Involvement of gut microbiota.

Antibiotic pretreatment significantly impaired short-term memory in mice.

• Mice were pretreated with an antibiotic cocktail prior to receiving gut microbiota transplants.
• This finding is described as consistent with previously reported results.
• The impairment was observed before microbiota transplantation, indicating a baseline effect of antibiotic treatment on cognition.
• This effect was noted as a significant finding in the context of the experimental design.

Mice receiving gut microbiota from human subjects with high or low cognitive flexibility showed modified short-term and long-term memory performance depending on diet exposure.

• Microbiota was transferred from human subjects classified as having impaired or non-impaired cognitive flexibility.
• The transferred microbiota was maintained in mice for seven weeks before behavioral testing.
• Memory performance differences were observed under both obesogenic (high-fat) diet and standard diet conditions.
• The effect on memory was diet-dependent, suggesting an interaction between gut microbiota and dietary context.

Slight changes in locomotor activity were observed primarily in high-fat diet-fed antibiotic-treated mice.

• Locomotor activity changes were described as 'slight' and not a major finding.
• The effect was specific to mice fed a high-fat (obesogenic) diet that had also received antibiotic treatment.
• Behavioral tests evaluated locomotor activity alongside cognitive responses, anxiety-like, and depression-like behaviors.

No significant alterations in anxiety-like or depressive-like behaviors were observed following gut microbiota transplantation.

• Behavioral tests were performed after the seven-week microbiota maintenance period.
• Both anxiety-like and depression-like behavioral measures were assessed and found to be unaffected.
• This finding distinguished cognitive effects from affective behavioral effects of the microbiota transplantation.
• The null result for anxiety and depression was consistent across the experimental groups.

The study investigated gut microbiota transplantation from humans with obesity/normal weight and impaired/non-impaired cognitive flexibility to examine effects on cognitive flexibility in mice exposed to obesogenic versus standard diet.

• Human donor subjects were categorized by both weight status and cognitive flexibility status.
• Recipient mice were exposed to either an obesogenic (high-fat) diet or a standard diet.
• Antibiotic cocktail pretreatment was used to deplete resident microbiota before transplantation.
• Behavioral tests evaluated cognitive flexibility as a measure of inhibitory control, along with locomotor activity, anxiety-like, and depression-like behaviors.