The effects of probiotics administration on the gut microbiome in adolescents with anorexia nervosa—A study protocol for a longitudinal, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial

Objective Knowledge on gut?brain interaction might help to develop new therapies for patients with anorexia nervosa (AN), as severe starvation-induced changes of the microbiome (MI) do not normalise with weight gain. We examine the effects of probiotics supplementation on the gut MI in patients with AN. Method This is a study protocol for a two-centre double-blind randomized-controlled trial comparing the clinical efficacy of multistrain probiotic administration in addition to treatment-as-usual compared to placebo in 60 patients with AN (13?19 years). Moreover, 60 sex- and age-matched healthy controls are included in order to record development-related changes. Assessments are conducted at baseline, discharge, 6 and 12 months after baseline. Assessments include measures of body mass index, psychopathology (including eating-disorder-related psychopathology, depression and anxiety), neuropsychological measures, serum and stool analyses. We hypothesise that probiotic administration will have positive effects on the gut microbiota and the treatment of AN by improvement of weight gain, gastrointestinal complaints and psychopathology, and reduction of inflammatory processes compared to placebo. Conclusions If probiotics could help to normalise the MI composition, reduce inflammation and gastrointestinal discomfort and increase body weight, its administration would be a readily applicable additional component of multi-modal AN treatment

Olfactory training induces changes in regional functional connectivity in patients with long-term smell loss

AbstractRecently, olfactory training has been introduced as a promising treatment for patients with olfactory dysfunction. However, less is known about the neuronal basis and the influence on functional networks of this training. Thus, we aimed to investigate the neuroplasticity of chemosensory perception through an olfactory training program in patients with smell loss.The experimental setup included functional MRI (fMRI) experiments with three different types of chemosensory stimuli. Ten anosmic patients (7f, 3m) and 14 healthy controls (7f, 7m) underwent the same testing sessions. After a 12-week olfactory training period, seven patients (4f, 3m) were invited for follow-up testing using the same fMRI protocol. Functional networks were identified using independent component analysis and were further examined in detail using functional connectivity analysis.We found that anosmic patients and healthy controls initially use the same three networks to process chemosensory input: the olfactory; the somatosensory; and the integrative network. Those networks did not differ between the two groups in their spatial extent, but in their functional connectivity. After the olfactory training, the sensitivity to detect odors significantly increased in the anosmic group, which was also manifested in modifications of functional connections in all three investigated networks.The results of this study indicate that an olfactory training program can reorganize functional networks, although, initially, no differences in the spatial distribution of neural activation were observed

Altered likelihood of brain activation in attention and working memory networks in patients with multiple sclerosis: an ALE meta-analysis.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic neurological disease, frequently affecting attention and working memory functions. Functional imaging studies investigating those functions in MS patients are hard to compare, as they include heterogeneous patient groups and use different paradigms for cognitive testing. The aim of this study was to investigate alterations in neuronal activation between MS patients and healthy controls performing attention and working memory tasks. Two meta-analyses of previously published fMRI studies investigating attention and working memory were conducted for MS patients and healthy controls, respectively. Resulting maps were contrasted to compare brain activation in patients and healthy controls. Significantly increased brain activation in the inferior parietal lobule and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was detected for healthy controls. In contrast, higher neuronal activation in MS patients was obtained in the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and the right premotor area. With this meta-analytic approach previous results of investigations examining cognitive function using fMRI are summarized and compared. Therefore a more general view on cognitive dysfunction in this heterogeneous disease is enabled

The effects of probiotics administration on the gut microbiome in adolescents with anorexia nervosa—: A study protocol for a longitudinal, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial

Objective: Knowledge on gut–brain interaction might help to develop new therapies for patients with anorexia nervosa (AN), as severe starvation-induced changes of the microbiome (MI) do not normalise with weight gain. We examine the effects of probiotics supplementation on the gut MI in patients with AN. Method: This is a study protocol for a two-centre double-blind randomized-controlled trial comparing the clinical efficacy of multistrain probiotic administration in addition to treatment-as-usual compared to placebo in 60 patients with AN (13–19 years). Moreover, 60 sex- and age-matched healthy controls are included in order to record development-related changes. Assessments are conducted at baseline, discharge, 6 and 12 months after baseline. Assessments include measures of body mass index, psychopathology (including eating-disorder-related psychopathology, depression and anxiety), neuropsychological measures, serum and stool analyses. We hypothesise that probiotic administration will have positive effects on the gut microbiota and the treatment of AN by improvement of weight gain, gastrointestinal complaints and psychopathology, and reduction of inflammatory processes compared to placebo. Conclusions: If probiotics could help to normalise the MI composition, reduce inflammation and gastrointestinal discomfort and increase body weight, its administration would be a readily applicable additional component of multi-modal AN treatment