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Everyone's "poo-pooing" the article because the title doesn't mention mice, but, FWIW, stories of gut biota affecting humans behavior have been documented for a while.

Memory gain is noteworthy, which is the article's "wow" factor, but everyone's just knee-jerk smirking so ... here's a few random articles to gross you out about the wild world of trading microbiota and, for better or worse, changing your personality:

  * "My butt made me crave candy."[1]
  * "Gee, I'm not bipolar anymore thanks to my husband's butt juice infusion."[2]
Crazy, right?

   [1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-behavioral-microbiome/202404/hacking-an-individuals-personality-through-their-gut-contents

   [2] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-28/faecal-microbiota-transplant-credited-with-curing-bipolar/105541522
I believe this research is totally true-- I had a lot of memories come back after

1. I stopped drinking heavily and using other drugs, i.e. marijuana

2. managed my diet to avoid heartburn without medication

3. schedule my meals so it was easier to sleep at night (always eat something for breakfast when I wake up)

I did not need any "poo infusion" or anything.

I had a gal bladder removal that didn't fix the problems the doctors thought it would and got a lot smarter about the kinds and variety of food I eat.

I believe alcohol in particular was really screwing up my gut biome and entire digestive system.

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In my opinion, gut microbiome stuff is massively overhyped.

Here's a study that tried fecal transplants to treat mental illness (and found no effect): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41785480/

The pattern with this stuff is that, when a blinded study is carried out, there's usually no effect.

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I would recommend the site https://gutbrainaxistherapeutics.com for learning more about Microbiota Transplant Therapy (MTT) and its opportunities, especially for Autism and Pitt-Hopkins Syndrome.
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Not only are there tons of papers, there are off-label treatments (some that have improved more than 80% of the folks I'm about to mention), and this isn't just about age related decline, but cognitive impairment in general. Long COVID, ME/CFS, TBIs, and other conditions are widely considered to have a similar origin. If you are interested in this stuff, I encourage you to look up all the scientific papers on this. It is fascinating stuff.
There was a South Park episode about this years ago where everyone was trying to get it from Tom Brady.
This seems to be a recent anti-science meme to dismiss studies that use mouse models. I'm sure there is an interesting line of discussion about the strengths and limits of those models, but that's probably a complex, nuanced thread to pull, not something you blow off with a hand-waving internet comment.
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