Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Oct;26(10):885-894.
doi: 10.1016/j.cardfail.2020.02.002. Epub 2020 Feb 24.

Intestinal Flora Dysbiosis Aggravates Cognitive Dysfunction Associated With Neuroinflammation in Heart Failure

Wei Yu  1 , Dapeng Gao  1 , Wen Jin  1 , Zijian Wang  1 , Yan Li  1 , Xiaowei Peng  1 , Yushuang Cong  1 , Chenglong Li  1 , Ayang Zhao  1 , Shuai Liu  1 , Sihua Qi  2
Affiliations

Intestinal Flora Dysbiosis Aggravates Cognitive Dysfunction Associated With Neuroinflammation in Heart Failure

Wei Yu et al. J Card Fail. 2020 Oct.

Abstract

Background: Cognitive dysfunction after heart failure (HF) is characterized by neuroinflammation, which plays an important role in the occurrence and development of cognitive dysfunction. Recent studies have shown that an intestinal flora imbalance may also trigger neuroinflammation in Alzheimer's disease. The present study was designed to reveal that intestinal flora dysbiosis caused by HF aggravates neuroinflammation-associated cognitive impairment.

Methods and results: Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were fed daily for 2 weeks with probiotics or placebo until the day of surgery. HF was then triggered by 8 weeks of sustained coronary artery occlusion. 16S rDNA sequencing was used to confirm intestinal flora dysbiosis after HF and demonstrate that the changes paralleled intestinal pathology scores. The permeability of the blood-brain barrier was increased after HF, and such an increase in permeability may increase the levels of inflammatory cytokines caused by intestinal flora disorders. The changes in the intestinal flora caused by probiotics significantly reduced the level of neuroinflammation. In addition, probiotic administration considerably improved the impaired spatial memory in HF rats.

Conclusions: We conclude that intestinal flora dysbiosis plays a potential role in aggravating the impaired cognition associated with neuroinflammation and that these effects may be attenuated by probiotics.

Keywords: Heart failure; cognition; microbiome; neuroinflammation.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

LinkOut - more resources