The first thing that comes to mind of microbial communities that can affect the brain are actually gut microbial communities. These help digest and absorb essential nutrients required for brain function. Having a healthy gut microbiota also could influence the mental state because knowing you have a healthy microbiota community is comforting and would be something you wouldn’t have to stress about. For example if I had food poisoning my mental morale would not be so high as I would be throwing up all the time and in pain. I also think that having an unhealthy mental state would result in stress hormones being released which could weaken the immune response and allow pathogenic bacteria to capitalize and overtake the body. I know especially for myself I get sick often during midterm and finals week because I am under a lot of stress which leads me to bad habits such as not washing my hands before I eat because I’m in a rush, and with my weakened immune system I am even more susceptible to getting sick.
