| Summary: | 碩士 === 國防醫學院 === 生理學研究所 === 107 === Increasing evidence suggests an existence of gut-brain axis in which the flora of microbiota plays a crucial role in the interactive communication between gut and brain. Fecal Microbiota Transplantation (FMT) recently earns great attention in both clinical and pre-clinical researches as it causes less pharmacological side effects and is in a natural way more appropriate in modeling the physiological functions. However, so far it is still employed in treating the gut disease per se and that limits its contributions in a broad range of clinical applications. If the FMT can be employed in treating psychiatric disorders, not only it may extend the utility of clinical use, but for a further step it proves the existence of gut-brain axis. The present study examined the effects of FMT on traumatic stress-induced fear memory extinction abnormalities and anxiety profiles, and also investigated the possible interactions among microbiota, gut, and brain. SD Rats in age of 3 weeks were used to experience single-prolonged stress (SPS), a paradigm acknowledged in modeling posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), including immobility, forced swimming, and loss of consciousness. Feces before the SPS were collected for later treatment applied to the same rats by enema or oral FMT. Behavioral tests included elevated T-maze (ETM) and fear conditioning test (FCT), which representing the levels of condition/unconditioned anxiety and the rats’ability of successfully behavioral extinction in a Pavlovian fear extinction testing. Our results demonstrated that both enema and oral feeding EMT were effective in treating avoidance anxiety; whereas only enema FMT was found effective in treating fear extinction abnormalities. The present study confirmed the utility of FMT in restoring fear memory abnormality induced by traumatic stress, therefore supports the existence of gut -brain axis.
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