From: Effect of fecal microbiota transplant on symptoms of psychiatric disorders: a systematic review
Study | Sample characteristics | Study design | Intervention | Donor | Measurement | Key findings and conclusions |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
De Palma et al. 2019 [43] | 141 GF NIH Swiss Mice | Randomized Controlled Trial | FMT from IBS patients and healthy donors to GF mice | 4 Anxious IBS-D patients, 4 non-anxious IBS-D patients, Mean age: 40 years old; 5 healthy human controls (HHC), Mean age: 42 years | Donors: HAM-A | • FMT from anxious IBS-patients to mice produced anxiety behaviors in mice |
Recipients: Light-dark preference test and step-down test | ||||||
• FMT from IBS patients with normal anxiety and from healthy controls to GF mice showed no significant anxious behaviors in GF mice | ||||||
• Akkermansia was associated with anxiety behaviors in mice | ||||||
Hata et al. 2019 [42] | Germ-free (GF) BALB/c mice | Randomized Controlled Trial | Oral FMT with and without pre-treatment with live Bacteroides vulgatus to GF mice | 4 AN patients, Mean age: 23 years, BMI 13.7; 4 HHC, Mean age: 25.3 years, BMI 21.6 | Donors: DSM diagnosis of AN | • FMT from AN patients induces anxiety-like and compulsive behaviors in GF recipient mice and impairs body weight gain |
Recipients: Open Field and Marble Burying | ||||||
• Pre-treatment with B. vulgatus attenuates compulsive behavior | ||||||
Zhao et al. 2019 [39] | Male C57BL/6 J mice with antibiotic gut microbiota suppression, 6 weeks old | Randomized Controlled Trial | FMT via intragastric administration every other day for 13 days to antibiotic treated mice | Patients with and without alcoholism, Ages 35–40 | Donors: ICD-10 diagnosis of alcoholism | • FMT from patients with alcoholism induced spontaneous alcohol dependence in mice |
Recipients: Open field test (OFT), alcohol preference test (APT), elevated plus maze test (EMT), tail suspension test (TST), and social interaction test (SIT), | • FMT-Alc group exhibited anxiety-like and depression-like behaviors changes and significantly declined social interaction behaviors | |||||
Huang et al. 2019 [36] | GF Mice | Randomized Controlled Trial | FMT from MDD patients and healthy controls to GF mice | 5 MDD patients; 5 HHC | Donor: DSM-IV diagnosis of depression and HAM-D | • FMT from MDD patients resulted in significantly increased immobility times for the FST and TST |
Recipient: OFT, TST, forced swimming test (FST), buried food pellet test (BFP) and olfaction behavior test (via modified BFP) | ||||||
• The center motion distance (OFT) also significantly decreased compared to controls | ||||||
• The latency for finding the object by depressed mice was significantly longer than that by healthy controls indicating impaired olfaction. | ||||||
Kelly et al. 2016 [34] | Adult, male Sprague Dawley rats treated with antibiotic cocktail for 28 days | Randomized Controlled Trial | 3-day pooled sample oral FMT from MDD patients and healthy controls to antibiotic treated rats, with booster inoculations given twice per week throughout the study. | Pooled fecal samples from 3 severely depressed MDD patients; pooled fecal samples from 3 HHC | Donor: Perceived stress scale (PSS), Beck Depression and Beck Anxiety Scales, HAM-D, etc. | • Rats receiving FMT from MDD patients demonstrated anhedonia-like behaviours as shown by a significant decrease in sucrose intake without affecting fluid intake in SPT |
Recipients: Sucrose preference test (SPT), OFT, EMT, FST | ||||||
• Rats receiving FMT from MDD patients also exhibited anxiety-like behaviours as shown by a significant decrease in visits to the open arms in the EMT and a reduction in time spent in the centre in the OFT. | ||||||
• In the forced swim test, there were no significant differences between the groups in immobility time, swimming, or climbing. | ||||||
Xu et al. 2018 [40] | 110 male C57BL/6 mice aged 4 to 5 weeks exposed to chronic ethanol | Randomized Controlled Trial | FMT 1: FMT at the end of chronic alcohol exposure period | 3 HHC | Recipients: OFT, TST, FST, and APT | • FMT 1 could not alleviate alcohol-induced anxiety or depression. |
FMT 2: FMT at middle (6%) of alcohol exposure period. | • FMT 2 alleviated alcohol-induced depression in TST | |||||
FMT 3: FMT at the beginning of whole exposure period | • FMT 3 modulated anxiety and significantly improved depression. | |||||
• FMT 3 decreased Anxiety in OFT and significantly improved depression in TST. | ||||||
• No significant alcohol preference alternation in FMT-treated mice. | ||||||
Zheng et al. 2016 [35] | Male GF Kunming mice and specific pathogen free (SPF) Kunming mice, 6–8 weeks old | Randomized Controlled Trial | Pooled sample FMT from MDD patients and HHC to GF mice | 5 Male MDD patients, ages 26–61; 5 Male HHC, ages 29–6 | Recipients: OFT, FST, TST | • Absence of gut microbiota in germ-free (GF) mice resulted in decreased immobility time in the FST compared to conventionally raised HC mice |
• The gut microbiota compositions of MDD patients and HC were significantly different with MDD patients characterized by significant changes in the relative abundance of Firmicutes, Actinobacteria and Bacteroidetes. | ||||||
• FMT from MDD patients to GF mice resulted in depression-like behaviors compared to HC colonization | ||||||
• Weight was not significantly different between groups | ||||||
Chen et al. 2020 [69] | ASD Model Mice | Randomized Controlled Trial | Pooled samples from Healthy Human donor gut bactiera (M + O) or cultured bacteria from original pooled healthy donor gut bacteria (M+ F) | Original healthy Human bacteria (M + O); in vitro cultured bacteria from healthy human donor (M + F) | OFT, Marble Burying Test, Self-grooming, Three-Chamber Social Test | • M + O spent significantly more time and had more entries in the OFT, significantly lower % of marbles burried, and significantly lower % of gromming time. |
• M + F had significantly lower % of marbles burried, and % of grooming time. | ||||||
• These results suggest that FMT from organic in vivo microbiota may be better at alleviating depressive and anxiety-like behaviours, but that both in vivo snd in vitro bacteria transplantation have beneficial properties. | ||||||
Liu et al. 2020 [37] | 18, 8-week old GF rats |  | Microbiota from healthy or depressed humans were transplanted into GF mice | Depressed or Healthy Humans between ages 18–60 | Donors: 24+ points on HAM-D, DSM-5 diagnosis of MDDRecipients: FST, SPT | • Rats receiving depression microbiota exhibited depression-like behavior (immobility time in the forced swimming test was significantly higher than in control groups) |
• From the first week to the fourth week, the saccharine preference index was significantly lower in the depression micro- biota group than that in the blank control and healthy microbiota groups |