Food and the microbiota

Carlos Ribeiro

Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, Lisbon, Portugal

The food we eat has a huge impact on how we feel and how we act. Recent studies have shown that this relationship between diet and brain function is strongly modulated by the gut microbiota.

In a previous project, also supported by the ”la Caixa” Foundation, the project team demonstrated for the first time, using the fruit fly as an animal model, that gut bacteria were capable of influencing appetite and making these insects choose to consume less protein. However, how gut bacteria achieve this is not yet fully understood. A key challenge is to know where and how they influence the chemistry of neurons and how this affects behaviour.

In this project, using the same animal model, scientists will try to reveal how the gut microbiota changes the chemistry of neurons and how that translates into a change in behaviour. They will use a new technology called "spatial metabolomics" to reveal how and where nutrients and microbiota influence brain function, neural circuits and, ultimately, behaviour.

• Theodore Alexandrow, European Molecular Biology Laboratory - EMBL Heidelberg, Germany

From metabolic space to neuronal space: mapping how nutrients affect brain function and behavior

€997,381.40