Nutritional Psychiatry: How do Brain – Gut Interactions Work?

The focus of this Research Topic is on research that aims to understand the basic mechanisms that regulate food intake, appetite and body weight in relation to mental illnesses.

This Research Topic may include manuscripts on the role of ingested nutrients in triggering adaptive processes in the brain, temporal relations between gut and brain signals that control eating behavior and in general information triggering regulatory circuits. Additionally, it will include manuscripts investigating how this links to feeding behavior and energy consumption. We hope that this Research Topic will clarify our understanding of the mechanisms that underlie the basic physiological circuits controlling energy homeostasis, with important implications for public health with respect to weight control and obesity-related morbidity. This Research Topic is of particular importance because understanding these fuel sensing mechanisms could even lead to novel therapeutic targets for mental illnesses.

In this Research Topic, we would like to cover the most recent neurobiological correlates for brain gut interactions. Studies exploring complex brain networks are highly appreciated. Very welcome are studies proving a link between clinical features such as psychopathology and cognition, brain signals, and chemistry. Moreover, environmental factors that may influence these processes will be brought together with a diversity of different research modalities. We welcome original research, reviews, case reports, clinical trials, clinical study protocols, hypothesis & theory, methods, and perspectives, from international researchers and clinicians in this field. The purpose of this Research Topic is intended to provide the field with current approaches in translational psychiatry that is hoped to improve and create therapeutic options for psychiatric diseases.

Keywords: brain-gut, nutrition, Appetite, weight, Food, brain circuits, neuroimaging, behavior, psychiatry, energy, fuel

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.