I am thrilled to share a new manuscript, out in Scientific Reports: Examining associations among maternal stress, social support, and the infant gut microbiota. In collaboration with @fquerdasi.bsky.social, @drbcallaghan.bsky.social, and @nataliebrito.bsky.social: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Just out! ✨ Using a novel machine learning approach, we identify a developmental pathway by which the early life gut microbiome may shape mental health at school age via effects on functional brain development. This work can help identify microbial biomarkers of later health issues. 👉 rdcu.be/eNsUK
Congratulations, Meriah! I can't wait to dig in to this paper 🤩
🙏 We need your help 🙏
The government continues to cancel grants at both NIH and NSF to censor science it doesn't like.
We're tracking terminations to organize and advocate. Please report your terminated grants:
NIH:
forms.gle/J2znQ7y7YpeP...
NSF: airtable.com/appGKlSVeXni...
w/ @noamross.net
❤️❤️❤️ thank you for doing this important work!
Congratulations, Associate Professor Extrordinaire!!! 🥳🤩
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration works on two of the most urgent U.S. health problems and has generally received bipartisan support. By the end of this week, the staff of the agency could be cut by 50%, according to senior staff members.
The Trump administration terminates funding for polio, HIV, malaria and nutrition programs around the world.
“People will die,” said Dr. Catherine Kyobutungi of the African Population and Health Research Center, “but we will never know, because even the programs to count the dead are cut.”
Horrible. We all need to act together to stop this. So many people, present and future, depend on work that NIH funds.
I’ll be there too!
ATTENTION
If you are someone who had an F31-Diversity (or similar) application submitted this cycle, please DM me here, contact me on signal (jeremymberg.78), or email me at jeremymberg@gmail.com.
I will keep all information confidential.
2/n
I’ve now posted the National YRBS data, 2015-2023, here. I’ll add the state and district data soon.
www.datalumos.org/datalumos/pr...
Our newest paper, in JAMA Open - randomized high stress employees at UCSF to Headspace or control and Headspace worked to reduce stress! Useful: the effect seems to happen as long as you hit 5 mins per day. Great leadership from @aricprather.bsky.social jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
"A study of federally funded research projects in the United States estimated that principal investigators spend on average about 45% of their time on administrative activities related to applying for and managing projects rather than conducting active research"
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
For Thanksgiving I want to spend the week highlighting some work that I’m really proud of from 2024. In doing so I’m going to highlight the wonderful research of students I am so thankful and lucky to work with! 🦃
Installment 2 of Thank you to my lab for being so great and making these memories! BABLab hits of the year will next feature the inimitable @ngancz.bsky.social publishing this paper on oral #microbiome changes in maltreated youth. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39280088/
Continuing our theme of giving thanks to the graduate students who make the research happen, next up for Black Friday we have a Shiba Shoutout @shibaesfand.bsky.social. Shiba joined the lab last year and has been a delight to have on our team.
Aww thanks so much, Bridget! ☺️ I love working with you too! Very thankful to have such a stellar mentor. You are a fantastic cheerleader, brilliant thought partner, and teacher who brings out the best. I have learned so much from you 🫶
Very happy to see this change 👏🏼
This is exciting because it suggests that the early life gut microbiome might shape functional brain development across early to middle childhood in ways that are relevant for emergence of anxiety and/or depression symptoms which children enter school age. Lots of possibilities for follow-up! 🥳
In sum, this study identifies prospective links between gut microbiome composition, brain functional connectivity networks, and internalizing (depression and anxiety) symptoms across early to middle childhood.
We found that one microbial profile, that included mostly microbes from the Clostridiales order and Lachnospiraceae family, was indirectly associated with internalizing symptoms through a brain signature characterized by alterations in connectivity within emotion-related networks.
Finally, we tested whether any microbiome features (microbial profiles or alpha diversity) were indirectly associated with internalizing symptoms via the brain signatures.
In this study, we used sPLS to identify linear combinations of brain networks ("brain signatures") at age 6 that maximally covaried with internalizing symptoms at age 7.5 years, and then identified microbe abundances ("microbial profiles") at age 2 that maximally covaried with the brain signatures.
Studying the brain and gut microbiome together is challenging since both are very complex and high-dimensional. One possible solution is to use multivariate machine learning techniques, such as sparse partial least squares regression (sPLS).
The brain and gut microbiome interact to influence mental health through the microbiome-gut-brain axis (MGBA). But there hasn't been much research linking the microbiome and brain function to mental health during childhood, when these systems are developing a lot and mental high issues often emerge.
🚨preprint alert🚨
So excited to share new work on developmental links between the microbiome-gut-brain axis and internalizing symptoms with @drbcallaghan.bsky.social, Jessica Uy, Jen Labus, and the GUSTO study team 🥳 (1/n)
osf.io/preprints/ps... 🚧 note: this work has NOT yet been peer-reviewed 🚧
🙋🏻♀️please!
A relatively simple & impactful way to advocate for science is at the local level: check if your community has hearings & is considering legislation you can offer specialized insight into. Also can see if local boards have spots you might be of particular service to.