Gut microbiome in ADHD and its relation to neural reward anticipation
Publication year
2017Source
PLoS One, 12, 9, (2017), article e0183509ISSN
Publication type
Article / Letter to editor

Display more detailsDisplay less details
Organization
PI Group Motivational & Cognitive Control
CMBI
Cognitive Neuroscience
PI Group MR Techniques in Brain Function
Internal Medicine
Human Genetics
Psychiatry
Journal title
PLoS One
Volume
vol. 12
Issue
iss. 9
Subject
150 000 MR Techniques in Brain Function; 170 000 Motivational & Cognitive Control; 220 Statistical Imaging Neuroscience; Radboudumc 4: lnfectious Diseases and Global Health RIMLS: Radboud Institute for Molecular Life Sciences; Radboudumc 7: Neurodevelopmental disorders DCMN: Donders Center for Medical NeuroscienceAbstract
BACKGROUND: Microorganisms in the human intestine (i.e. the gut microbiome) have an increasingly recognized impact on human health, including brain functioning. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder associated with abnormalities in dopamine neurotransmission and deficits in reward processing and its underlying neuro-circuitry including the ventral striatum. The microbiome might contribute to ADHD etiology via the gut-brain axis. In this pilot study, we investigated potential differences in the microbiome between ADHD cases and undiagnosed controls, as well as its relation to neural reward processing. METHODS: We used 16S rRNA marker gene sequencing (16S) to identify bacterial taxa and their predicted gene functions in 19 ADHD and 77 control participants. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we interrogated the effect of observed microbiome differences in neural reward responses in a subset of 28 participants, independent of diagnosis. RESULTS: For the first time, we describe gut microbial makeup of adolescents and adults diagnosed with ADHD. We found that the relative abundance of several bacterial taxa differed between cases and controls, albeit marginally significant. A nominal increase in the Bifidobacterium genus was observed in ADHD cases. In a hypothesis-driven approach, we found that the observed increase was linked to significantly enhanced 16S-based predicted bacterial gene functionality encoding cyclohexadienyl dehydratase in cases relative to controls. This enzyme is involved in the synthesis of phenylalanine, a precursor of dopamine. Increased relative abundance of this functionality was significantly associated with decreased ventral striatal fMRI responses during reward anticipation, independent of ADHD diagnosis and age. CONCLUSIONS: Our results show increases in gut microbiome predicted function of dopamine precursor synthesis between ADHD cases and controls. This increase in microbiome function relates to decreased neural responses to reward anticipation. Decreased neural reward anticipation constitutes one of the hallmarks of ADHD.
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
- Academic publications [203856]
- Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging [3391]
- Electronic publications [102295]
- Faculty of Medical Sciences [80326]
- Open Access publications [70951]
Upload full text
Use your RU credentials (u/z-number and password) to log in with SURFconext to upload a file for processing by the repository team.