Prebiotics and the Mind: Exploring Connections to Mental Health and Psychiatric Outcomes
A Special Issue of Nutrients (ISSN 2072-6643) belonging to the section "Prebiotics, Probiotics and Postbiotics".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 February 2027 | Viewed by 1114
Editors
Interests: nutritional psychiatry; gut-brain axis; inflammation; personalized medicine; gut permeability; lifestyle psychiatry
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: exercise physiology; physical activity; exercise science; exercise testing; muscle; inflammation; strength & conditioning; exercise intervention; mental health; mental illness
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The relationship between prebiotics and mental health has gained increasing attention, particularly within the framework of the gut–brain (gut–microbiota–brain) axis. Emerging evidence suggests that dietary prebiotics may influence mood, depressive symptoms, and stress-related outcomes, indicating their potential role as a supportive strategy for mental health and as an adjunctive therapy in psychiatric disorders.
Most existing research has focused on mood and anxiety symptoms, often emphasizing probiotics rather than prebiotics. Evidence regarding the effects of prebiotics in psychiatric populations and individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders remains limited. Although dietary prebiotics may exert broad effects on emotional and stress responses, current findings are inconsistent. These discrepancies likely result from heterogeneous study designs, differences in prebiotic type, dosage, duration of intervention, and interindividual variability in gut microbiota composition, making it difficult to draw firm conclusions.
While promising results have been reported in adults, the impact of prebiotics on mental health outcomes in children and adolescents is still underexplored and requires further investigation.
This Special Issue aims to highlight the effects of prebiotics on mental health and psychiatric outcomes in both healthy individuals and patients with psychiatric disorders, with a particular emphasis on their role as adjunctive therapy. Studies exploring underlying mechanisms of action within the gut–brain axis are especially welcome. We invite original research articles, reviews, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses from both human and experimental studies.
Dr. Joanna Rog
Dr. Andrew McKune
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Nutrients is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- prebiotics
- gut-brain axis
- mental health
- nutritional psychiatry
- gut microbiome
- mood disorders
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