I’m a good Bacteria!

Probiotics and the brain: Can

they make you smarter?

ObjectivesIce breaker Who am I ? Introduce the topic Brief methods Data analysis Over to you! Questions at the end

Who is listening?

Who am I?

Sum!

Why am I here?

Introduction to the topic

Background

Aims

To assess whether probiotic supplements can alter the behaviour of rats when given an object novelty task

Methods

1 1 12

5 mins or 1 hour delay

Sample phase Test phase

Experimental set up

A brief video showing the test phasehttp://people.sju.edu/~mander06/NORVideos.

htm

Data at a 5 minute delayRat

number

Control novel object contact time

(s)

Control familiar object

contact time (s)

1 51.90 21.222 64.60 13.673 36.49 11.304 77.05 21.665 39.80 39.846 29.20 28.907 29.90 12.238 19.38 7.099 38.76 9.1010 25.29 1.6911 27.97 34.6912 33.79 44.0413 50.00 41.9814 56.01 22.09

Rat number

Probiotic novel object contact time

(s)

Probiotic familiar object

contact time (s)

1 73.30 21.712 69.35 30.923 89.84 50.744 50.00 29.825 26.41 11.176 18.27 7.787 29.88 15.098 32.17 8.389 32.05 7.0310 38.72 3.9811 33.39 23.8112 44.46 1.5513 55.80 26.1814 60.65 26.18

Data at a 1 hour delay

Rat number Control novel object contact

time (s)

Control familiar object contact

time (s)1 29.88 38.442 50.11 38.483 43.36 41.754 39.59 31.815 29.51 3.086 47.3 26.57 24.62 15.318 27.03 18.859 49.17 23.7310 26.31 7.4211 48.14 30.812 28.78 50.3913 18.06 21.2214 15.72 33.29

Rat number Probiotic novel object contact

time (s)

Probiotic familiar object contact

time (s)1 50.67 34.82 79.64 18.613 63.41 39.014 69.92 38.635 8.53 1.336 33.88 8.747 53.28 18.778 41.4 9.069 35.96 61.1110 61.11 17.3111 35.21 23.512 79.32 23.9713 50.69 26.9714 41.94 17.76

Hypothesis (What do I expect?)

The taskThe data presented represents one of the experiments I did which looked at testing a rat’s ability to tell a novel object from a familiar one. The more time a rat spends with a novel object, the better it is! With this in mind, I want you to plot my data (all on the same graph) and show me whether the control group or the probiotic group is better at this task. Think also about how you present the data (i.e. do you need to plot every point or is there a better way of showing the trends?) I also want you to tell me what the mean values for the two different groups are and what the effect of putting a longer delay is. Please also calculate the standard deviation and standard error of the mean for each group.

Over to you…what did you find?

Some YouTube clipshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubNF9QN

EQLAhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URLRdcn

U6Hk

References Good, M. A., Barnes, P., Staal, V., McGregor, A. and Honey, R. C. (2007).

Context- but not familiarity-dependent forms of object recognition are impaired following excitotoxic hippocampal lesions in rats. Behavioral Neuroscience 121:218-223.

Good, M. A. and Hale, G. (2007). The "Swedish" Mutation of the Amyloid Precursor Protein (APPswe) Dissociates Components of Object-Location Memory in Aged Tg2576 Mice. Behavioral Neuroscience 121:1180-1191.

Hohmann, C. F., Walker, E. M., Boylan, C. B. and Blue, M. E. (2007). Neonatal serotonin depletion alters behavioural responses to spatial change and novelty. Brain Research 1139:163-177.

Barker, G. R. I., Bird, F., Alexander, V. and Warburton, E. C. (2007). Recognition memory for objects, place, and temporal order: A disconnection analysis of the role of the medial prefrontal cortex and perirhinal cortex. Journal of Neuroscience 27:2948-2957.

Desbonnet, L., Garrett, L., Clarke, G., Bienenstock, J., and Dinan, T. G. (2008). The probiotic Bifidobacteria infantis: An assessment of potential antidepressant properties in the rat. Journal of Psychiatric Research 43: 164-174.