The Feasibility of Using Fecal Microbiota Transplantation as a Treatment for Mental Health Conditions Among IBS/IBD Patients: A Literature Review
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Introduction: The gut-brain axis has emerged as a crucial research area, emphasizing the intricate relationship between gastrointestinal health and mental well-being. Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) are gastrointestinal disorders that not only affect digestive function but also frequently co-occur with psychiatric conditions, such as anxiety and depression. Research suggests that the gut microbiome may be a key factor in this gut-brain connection, with specific microbiota influencing brain function and behaviour via neurotransmitter production and inflammation modulation. Fecal matter transplantation (FMT), the transfer of healthy gut microbiota to treat gastrointestinal conditions by restoring healthy microbes, has shown promise for addressing comorbid psychological symptoms. This review evaluates the evidence on using FMTs as a potential concurrent treatment of both psychological comorbidities and gastrointestinal symptoms among IBS and IBD patients. Methods: A review of the current literature was performed by searching for keywords using scientific electronic databases. Keywords used to search for articles included “fecal microbiota transplantation,” “FMT”, “comorbidity”, “gut-brain axis,” “mental health,” “depression,” “anxiety,” “irritable bowel syndrome,” “inflammatory bowel disease,” and “gut dysbiosis”. Articles were screened and selected based on quality and relevance. Results: Animal IBS models demonstrate a significant effect of FMT for initiating and treating psychological symptoms. Similarly, clinical trials have proven FMT to alleviate psychological symptoms among IBS patients by restoring healthy microbiota, but long-term effects require further investigation. Preclinical IBD animal studies support a causal relationship between gut microbiota, inflammation, and symptoms of anxiety, depression. Clinical evidence further supports FMT for IBD mental health comorbidities, suggesting that gut alterations offer relief from symptoms. Discussion: Results support the therapeutic potential of FMT in improving gastrointestinal and psychological symptoms among IBS and IBD patients. These conclusions remain preliminary due to a lack of homogeneity across studies, particularly in donor selection, administration route, and outcome measures, which limits the overall generalizability of results. Future research should address heterogeneous methodology to standardize protocols, as well as include larger and more diverse samples to inform clinical implementation. Conclusion: This review suggests that FMT may be a potential treatment for both gastrointestinal and psychological symptoms.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.011 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.009 | 0.010 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".