Nasal microbiota characteristics of depression patients

Depressive disorder is a heterogeneous neuropsychiatric disorder. It affects millions of people worldwide. Depression patients often appear despair and social interaction deficits. The exact causes of depressive behavior remain unclear and are believed to implicate both genetic and environmental factors.In the past decade, there have been numerous studies on the dysbiosis of gut microbiota in patients with depression and animal models. Of particular note is the role of gut brain axis regulation, in which a series of continuously expanding microbial metabolites, including short chain fatty acids and neurotransmitters, have been identified as signaling molecules that affect behavioral outcomes.However, most insights about the association between microbiota and depression still focus on the gut-brain axis and ignore that nasal microbiota could form a complex and essential link with the nervous system via the nose-to-brain pathway. So far, the potential influence of the nasal microbiome on neurological disorders has been largely overlooked. We investigated the impact of nasal microbiota on depression in this study.