As noted by Dr. Vicki Ellingrod — the Chair of this session, «Current state - of - the - art research in both animal models as well as
humans point to the link between the gut
microbiota and mood and anxiety models, as well as the potential for psychiatric medications to directly
affect the gut microbiome.»
In addition, cohousing coprophagic mice harboring transplanted
microbiota from discordant pairs provides an opportunity to determine which bacterial taxa invade the gut communities of cage mates, how invasion correlates with host phenotypes, and how invasion and microbial niche are
affected by
human diets.