Research published in the journal Gut Microbes by the SyMBIOTA team has found that baby’s gut microbiota composition in the first year of life may be associated with enhanced neurodevelopment at age two. The study found that boys with a gut bacterial composition high in the bacteria Bacteroidetes at one year of age had more advanced cognition and language skills one year later.
The research involved the analysis of bacteria in stool samples taken from over 400 infants participating in the CHILD Study's Edmonton site, identifying three groups of infants exhibiting different dominant clusters of bacteria. The researchers then evaluated the infants on a variety of neural developmental scales. Infants with a Bacteroidetes-dominant microbial composition achieved 4.8-point and 4.2-point higher cognitive and language development scores, respectively, compared to the other two groups. For boys, a 7.9-point higher performance for language was found in the group with high Bacteriodetes. Bacteroidetes are one of a very few bacteria that produce metabolites called sphingolipids, which are instrumental for the formation and structure of neurons in the brain.