Aggression shapes the gut microbiome; a study in rats

The gut-brain axis is regarded as a bidirectional communication system that integrates signals from the gut microbiome into behavioral aspects and vice versa. The aim of the present study was to investigate the gut-brain-behavior interaction in relation to coping strategies. For that, male rats were collected from a group-housed colony and were individually housed with a female rat to become territorial. Next, a coping strategy was assigned to them, by evaluating their aggression levels against an intruder, during the Resident-Intruder test (RI). To investigate if their microbiome would change as a consequence of the developed coping strategy, fecal samples were collected before and after the RI. Our data are used to investigate whether the gut bacterial communities are responsive to the imposed social challenge,and whether predisposing microbiome characteristics may have predictive value for the development of a coping strategy.