Gut microbes from higher-scoring donors improved learning in mice
An eight-week experiment using 13 male human donors found better maze performance in mice given gut microbes from donors with higher processing-speed scores.
Our read
Interventions- Studied:
- Experiments in 39 adult male C57BL/6 mice, against mice receiving lower-scoring donors’ microbiota (Randomized, sample size calculated)
- What changed:
- Maze path efficiency was higher with higher-scoring donors’ microbes: 0.289 against 0.201 with lower-scoring donors’ microbes
- The catch:
- Microbiota were sampled at a single timepoint, potentially missing changes over time
- In the record:
- One of 280 papers on fecal microbiota transplantation on record: 6 with results in people, 134 in animals. Its result on cognitive function agrees with 14 of 16 other findings on record; 2 point the other way.
Editor of record: Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
Six-month-old male C57BL/6 mice received gut microbes from 13 male human donors, with three mice per donor, in an eight-week transplant experiment. The donors had higher or lower scores on a test of information processing speed. Four weeks after transfers began, mice receiving microbes from higher-scoring donors performed better in a water maze that tested spatial learning and memory. These mice also had a higher density of nerve cells.
An observational analysis of 867 older people in the Imageomics cohort linked gut microbial species and functions to processing-speed scores. In both people and mice, better cognitive performance was associated with chemical processes involving amino acids called arginine and proline, and compounds called pterins.
Why it matters
The gut microbiome changes across the lifespan. The authors propose a model in which changes in metabolism associated with gut microbes influence cognitive performance, a potential link to cognitive decline with age.
Caveats
The transfer experiment used 13 male donors and one strain of male mice. It cannot show whether similar transfers would improve cognition in older people.
Where the evidence stands
Fecal microbiota transplantation
- 91 independent labs in 24 countries
- 20 findings against
- 122 trials, 16 with no results posted
- Funders: National Natural Science Foundation of China and others
- 9 of 309 findings with company ties
- 2 of 122 trials sponsored by its developers
Amino acid metabolism
- 57 independent labs in 19 countries
- 2 findings against
- Funders: National Institutes of Health and others
- 10 of 65 findings with company ties
- Fecal microbiota transplantation
- Amino acid metabolism
- Microbiome composition
- Morris water maze
- Neuronal density
- Mice
The paper
Centre Tecnològic de Catalunya
Gut Microbes, Nov 10, 2026, Open access, CC BY
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