Data for "Gut microbial genes are associated with neurocognition and brain development in healthy children"

Both the brain and microbiome of humans develop rapidly in the first years of life, enabling extensive signaling between the gut and central nervous system (dubbed the microbiome-gut-brain axis). While emerging evidence implicates gut microorganisms and microbiota composition in cognitive outcomes and neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g., autism), the role of the gut microbial metabolism on typical neurodevelopment has not been explored in detail. We investigated the relationship of the microbiome with the neuroanatomy and cognitive function of 310 healthy children and demonstrated that differences in gut microbial taxa and gene functions, including genes for the metabolism and synthesis of glutamate and GABA, are associated with the size of brain regions important during development such as the cerebellum, and with overall cognitive function.