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Review
. 2023 Aug 25:16:100205.
doi: 10.1016/j.cpnec.2023.100205. eCollection 2023 Nov.

Oxytocin and the microbiome

Bernard J Varian  1 , Katherine T Weber  1 , Susan E Erdman  1
Affiliations
Review

Oxytocin and the microbiome

Bernard J Varian et al. Compr Psychoneuroendocrinol. .

Abstract

The mammalian host microbiome affects many targets throughout the body, at least in part through an integrated gut-brain-immune axis and neuropeptide hormone oxytocin. It was discovered in animal models that microbial symbionts, such as Lactobacillus reuteri, leverage perinatal niches to promote multigenerational good health and reproductive fitness. While roles for oxytocin were once limited to women, such as giving birth and nurturing offspring, oxytocin is now also proposed to have important roles linking microbial symbionts with overall host fitness and survival throughout the evolutionary journey.

Keywords: Gut-brain-immune axis; L. reuteri; Probiotic; Symbiont; Symbiotic; Vagus nerve.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Humans and the microbes that colonize their guts have developed a symbiotic relationship over the course of evolution. Microbes live on the surfaces where humans interface with their environments. This causes factors like diet, pathogens, the environment, and genetic predispositions to influence our relationship with our gut microbiomes and its outputs. Oxytocin and the gut microbiome are at the center of many of the human body's functions. Both oxytocin and the gut microbes are integral in various capacities to the stages of human life like pregnancy and breastfeeding, immune health and microbiome development, and bonding and sociability. Taken together with parallel evidence from animal models this paradigm supports multigenerational health for both the microbes and their hosts.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
The gut microbiome modulates host immune responses via the gut-brain-immune axis through a variety of mechanisms including microbial community dynamics and circulating microbial products and immune factors. Among these mechanisms, the vagus nerve allows gut microbes to communicate with the brain and modulate the immune system and maintain homeostasis in the host's body. As demonstrated in Poutahidis et al., 2013, vagotomies, which sever this line of communication, block gut-mediated immune modulation affecting the circulation, distribution, activation and potency of various immune cells [10].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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