Vitamin B12 and Affective Disorders: A Focus on the Gut-Brain Axis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Accumulating evidence highlights the role of Vitamin B12 (VitB12) in the pathophysiology of affective disorders. However, its influence on brain function and the underlying mechanisms remain incompletely understood. In humans, VitB12 is obtained solely from dietary sources, primarily animal-based foods. VitB12 deficiency leads to the accumulation of homocysteine, a known contributor to emotional and behavioral dysregulation. VitB12 plays a critical role in maintaining neuron stability, synapsis plasticity, and regulating neuroinflammation by modulating key bioactive factors. These processes help to alleviate hippocampal damage, mitigate blood-brain barrier disruption, reduce oxidative stress, and enhance both structural and functional connectivity-collectively contributing to resilience against affective disorders. VitB12 from both diet and microbial sources is essential to gut homeostasis. Within the gut lumen, it stabilizes gut microbial communities, promotes short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) production, and supports neurotransmitter metabolism (e.g., serotonin and dopamine) via its role in S-adenosyl-l-methionine biosynthesis. Crucially, VitB12, gut microbiota, SCFAs, intestinal mucosa, and vagal nerve signaling interact synergistically within the gut-brain axis (GBA) to maintain gut microenvironment stability, protect the gut-blood barrier, and suppress neuroinflammatory cascades, eventually reducing the susceptibility to affective disorders. This review synthesizes current evidence on the involvement of VitB12 in the GBA, its association with mood regulation, and its potential as a nutritional adjunct in managing affective disorders. By elucidating this integrative mechanism, we provide new insights into targeting the GBA to improve clinical outcomes in affective disorders.
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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 | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
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".