biopunk

The gastrointestinal (GI) tract is home to ~500 million enteric neurons, ~70% of the body’s immune cells, and over 100 trillion microbes

Accumulating evidence is suggesting that the vagus nerve is one of the major routes in the microbiome-gut-brain axis

In particular, serotonin can activate vagal afferents via serotonin receptor HTR3A [7], and therefore, may serve as a major signaling molecule between gut microbiota and the vagus nerve

The gastrointestinal tract secretes hormones that control of feeding. These peptides access the brain partly through the area postrema, a circumventricular organ located in the roof of the 4th ventricle. The area postrema is situated above the NTS, thus allowing neurons to respond directly to circulating gut hormones, and to relay these signals to... See more

soluble analogues of membrane proteins

As a growing peptide forms, it is then cleaved from its signal sequence, forming a large preprohormone, which is then cleaved further into a prohormone. As a prohormone, it is packaged into vesicles and sent to the Golgi apparatus for further processing and to be proteolytically cleaved into their final form. The final peptide is packaged into... See more

In short, we still lack mechanistic understanding of the roles of vagal sensory neurons in the microbiota-gut-brain axis, calling for more cell-type specific ablation studies in the future

about two-thirds of enteroendocrine cells are able to make synapses with adjacent nerves

it has been shown that numerous brain regions are impacted by vagus nerve stimulation, and this connectivity has been termed the “vagus afferent network”.