REVIEW article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Molecular Psychiatry
A Taxon-Centered Review of Bacterial Shifts in Psychiatric Disorders
Provisionally accepted
Razvan-Ioan Papacocea1,2*
Adela-Magdalena Ciobanu1,2- 1Universitatea de Medicina si Farmacie Carol Davila din Bucuresti, Bucharest, Romania
- 2Spitalul Clinic de Psihiatrie Prof Dr Al Obregia, Bucharest, Romania
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ABSTRACT: Background: Psychiatric conditions rank among the leading causes of disability worldwide, with their burden steadily increasing in recent years. Recent research highlights the gut-brain axis as a pivotal pathway in mental health, implicating gut microbiota shifts in conditions such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism spectrum disorder, Alzheimer's disease and others. However, most reviews remain diagnosis-centered. Methods: We conducted a structured literature review of articles published between January 2015 and July 2025 in PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. We included both human and animal studies that reported taxonomic changes in gut microbiota associated with psychiatric or neurodevelopmental disorders. Editorials, conference abstracts, and studies lacking full-text availability, not addressing psychiatric outcomes or specific taxonomic data were excluded. Thus, data on bacterial taxa reported as increased or decreased versus controls were extracted and reorganized into a taxon-centered database. Results: The analysis suggested distinct yet overlapping microbial alterations across psychiatric conditions. Taxa such as Coprococcus and Faecalibacterium were repeatedly reported as decreased in multiple disorders, suggesting a possible reduction in taxa commonly associated with anti-inflammatory functions, while Bacteroides, Lactobacillus, and Clostridium were reported in context-dependent associations. Some genera (e.g., Desulfovibrio, Klebsiella, Methanobrevibacter) were reported as enriched across disorders, potentially reflecting shared inflammatory-related profiles. This transdiagnostic mapping highlights microbial taxa that recur across psychiatric conditions and may represent candidates for further investigation. Conclusion: By changing the perspective from diagnosis to taxon-centered analysis, this review suggests microbial signatures that appear across psychiatric diseases, supporting the possibility of shared pathophysiological pathways. Given the largely associative nature of the available data, these findings should be interpreted cautiously and may help guide future research exploring the role of the gut microbiota in mental health.
Keywords: Anxiety, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Depression, Gut Microbiota, gut-brain axis, Psychiatric disorder, Schizophrenia
Received: 09 Sep 2025; Accepted: 11 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Papacocea and Ciobanu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Razvan-Ioan Papacocea
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