{"id":220052,"date":"2025-08-14T00:06:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T05:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/maternal-microbes-play-a-significant-role-in-shaping-early-brain-development-study-suggests"},"modified":"2025-08-14T00:06:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T05:06:07","slug":"maternal-microbes-play-a-significant-role-in-shaping-early-brain-development-study-suggests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/maternal-microbes-play-a-significant-role-in-shaping-early-brain-development-study-suggests","title":{"rendered":"Maternal microbes play a significant role in shaping early brain development, study suggests"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/maternal-microbes-play-a-significant-role-in-shaping-early-brain-development-study-suggests.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Research from Michigan State University finds that microbes play an important role in shaping early brain development, specifically in a key brain region that controls stress, social behavior, and vital body functions.<\/p>\n<p>The study, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0018506X25000686?via%3Dihub\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in <i>Hormones and Behavior<\/i>, used a <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/mouse+model\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">mouse model<\/a> to highlight how natural microbial exposure not only impacts <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/brain+structure\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">brain structure<\/a> immediately after birth but may even begin influencing development while still in the womb. A mouse model was chosen because mice share significant biological and behavioral similarities with humans and there are no other alternatives to study the role of <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/microbes\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">microbes<\/a> on brain development.<\/p>\n<p>This work is of significance because modern obstetric practices, like peripartum <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/antibiotic+use\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">antibiotic use<\/a> and Cesarean delivery, disrupt maternal microbes. In the United States alone, 40% of women receive antibiotics around childbirth and one-third of all births occur via Cesarean section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Research from Michigan State University finds that microbes play an important role in shaping early brain development, specifically in a key brain region that controls stress, social behavior, and vital body functions. The study, published in Hormones and Behavior, used a mouse model to highlight how natural microbial exposure not only impacts brain structure immediately [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-220052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220052\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}