Diversität der intestinalen Mikrobiota am Beispiel der Darmflora einer Anorexia Patientin

Die hier vorgestellte Studie ist Teil eines Projektes zur Erforschung der Diversität der menschlichen Darmflora. In diesem Sinne wurde die Stuhlprobe einer 21-jährigen Anorexia Patientin auf die darin enthaltenen Bakterien untersucht. Dazu wurden 88 verschiedene Kulturkonditionen angewandt um möglichst vielen Arten das Wachstum zu ermöglichen. Verschiedene bekannte und neu entwickelte Nährböden wurden beimpft und Atmosphäre, Temperatur und Inkubationszeit variiert. Außerdem wurde aktive und passive Filtration angewandt, Phagen benutzt, in Blutkulturflaschen mit oder ohne Beimengung von Verdauungssäften oder sterilem Stuhl präinkubiert und schließlich neu entwickelte Nährböden mit Banane, Camembert oder Joghurt in Anlehnung an die Ernährungsgewohnheiten der Patientin angewandt. Es wurden 133 Spezies isoliert, die den Phyla Firmicutes, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes und Proteobacteria angehören. 19 der Bakterien wurden zum ersten Mal aus dem menschlichen Darm isoliert. Von diesen wiederum sind 11 Bakterien von mir neu entdeckt und beschrieben worden. Es handelt sich um die 2 neuen Gattungen Stoquefichus massiliensis und Soleaferrea massiliensis und die 9 neuen Spezies Dorea massiliensis, Clostridium ihumii, Clostridium anorexicamassiliense, Holdemania massiliensis, Bacillus marseilloanorexius, Alistipes ihumii, Bacteroides timonensis, Streptomyces massiliensis und Blastococcus massiliensis. Mit den Ergebnissen der metagenomischen Untersuchung zeigt sich eine nur geringe Überlappung

Additional file 1: Table S1. of Non-contiguous finished genome sequence and description of Clostridium ihumii sp. nov.

Differential characteristics of C. ihumii AP5T, Clostridium beijerinckii strain NCIMB 8052, Clostridium botulinum strain ATCC 3502, Clostridium carboxidivorans strain P7, Clostridium dakarensestrain FF1, Clostridium difficile strain B1, Clostridium perfringens strain ATCC 13124, and C. senegalense strain JC122

Anticipating agoraphobic situations: the neural correlates of panic disorder with agoraphobia

Background. Panic disorder with agoraphobia is characterized by panic attacks and anxiety in situations where escape might be difficult. However, neuroimaging studies specifically focusing on agoraphobia are rare. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with disorder-specific stimuli to investigate the neural substrates of agoraphobia. Method. We compared the neural activations of 72 patients suffering from panic disorder with agoraphobia with 72 matched healthy control subjects in a 3-T fMRI study. To isolate agoraphobia-specific alterations we tested the effects of the anticipation and perception of an agoraphobia-specific stimulus set. During fMRI, 48 agoraphobia-specific and 48 neutral pictures were randomly presented with and without anticipatory stimulus indicating the content of the subsequent pictures (Westphal paradigm). Results. During the anticipation of agoraphobia-specific pictures, stronger activations were found in the bilateral ventral striatum and left insula in patients compared with controls. There were no group differences during the perception phase of agoraphobia-specific pictures. Conclusions. This study revealed stronger region-specific activations in patients suffering from panic disorder with agoraphobia in anticipation of agoraphobia-specific stimuli. Patients seem to process these stimuli more intensively based on individual salience. Hyperactivation of the ventral striatum and insula when anticipating agoraphobia-specific situations might be a central neurofunctional correlate of agoraphobia. Knowledge about the neural correlates of anticipatory and perceptual processes regarding agoraphobic situations will help to optimize and evaluate treatments, such as exposure therapy, in patients with panic disorder and agoraphobia

Effects of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy on Neural Processing of Agoraphobia-Specific Stimuli in Panic Disorder and Agoraphobia

Background: Patients suffering from panic disorder and agoraphobia are significantly impaired in daily life due to anxiety about getting into a situation due to apprehension about experiencing a panic attack, especially if escape may be difficult. Dysfunctional beliefs and behavior can be changed with cognitive behavioral therapy; however, the neurobiological effects of such an intervention on the anticipation and observation of agoraphobia-specific stimuli are unknown. Methods: We compared changes in neural activation by measuring the blood oxygen level-dependent signal of 51 patients and 51 healthy controls between scans before and those after treatment (group by time interaction) during anticipation and observation of agoraphobia-specific compared to neutral pictures using 3-T fMRI. Results: A significant group by time interaction was observed in the ventral striatum during anticipation and in the right amygdala during observation of agoraphobia-specific pictures; the patients displayed a decrease in ventral striatal activation during anticipation from pre- to posttreatment scans, which correlated with clinical improvement measured with the Mobility Inventory. During observation, the patients displayed decreased activation in the amygdala. These activational changes were not observed in the matched healthy controls. Conclusions: For the first time, neural effects of cognitive behavioral therapy were shown in patients suffering from panic disorder and agoraphobia using disorderspecific stimuli. The decrease in activation in the ventral striatum indicates that cognitive behavioral therapy modifies anticipatory anxiety and may ameliorate abnormally heightened salience attribution to expected threatening stimuli. The decreased amygdala activation in response to agoraphobia-specific stimuli indicates that cognitive behavioral therapy can alter the basal processing of agoraphobia-specific stimuli in a core region of the fear network

Codiversification of gut microbiota with humans

International audienceThe gut microbiomes of human populations worldwide have many core microbial species in common. However, within a species, some strains can show remarkable population specificity. The question is whether such specificity arises from a shared evolutionary history (codiversification) between humans and their microbes. To test for codiversification of host and microbiota, we analyzed paired gut metagenomes and human genomes for 1225 individuals in Europe, Asia, and Africa, including mothers and their children. Between and within countries, a parallel evolutionary history was evident for humans and their gut microbes. Moreover, species displaying the strongest codiversification independently evolved traits characteristic of host dependency, including reduced genomes and oxygen and temperature sensitivity. These findings all point to the importance of understanding the potential role of population-specific microbial strains in microbiome-mediated disease phenotypes

Auditory processing of sine tones before, during and after ECT in depressed patients by fMRI

Our goal was to assess treatment effects of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) on acoustic processing in major depression. We hypothesized that (1) depression is related to functional alterations in auditory networks, and that (2) pre-treatment alterations in auditory networks are reversible through treatment with ECT. Acoustic perception of 20 severely depressed and 20 age and gender matched healthy controls was investigated by 3 T functional magnetic resonance imaging employing repeated stimulation by sine tones. Prior to ECT, depressed patients presented a multimodal recruitment of additional brain areas including regions of the secondary visual system (cuneus, lingualis) and the medial frontal cortex. During ECT, signal intensities were reduced compared to pre-ECT values and controls. Activation of several regions increased after ECT. Our data suggest that depression is accompanied by cortical dysfunction including impaired auditory processing of non-speech stimuli. This might be based on overall alterations of brain metabolism indicating functional impairment.Martin Christ, Nikolaus Michael, Hermina Hihn, Anne Schuüttke, Carsten Konrad, Bernhard T. Baune, Andreas Jansen, Bettina Pfleidere