GUT FEELINGS

Not everyone would launch an investigation into mental health by looking at the human gut, but that’s where Professor Nick Spencer believes we will find answers to many questions that, until now, have been elusive.

Professor Spencer works at Flinders University’s College of Medicine and Public Health. He completed his PhD on the gut 21 years ago and admits that the study is not for everyone.

“The gut was not a very popular organ for a variety of reasons. It was thought to be just an organ to digest food and absorb nutrients and pass those nutrients on into the bloodstream so that we can survive,” he says.

Even today, it is little understood. So when the links between the brain, behaviour and the microbes that live in our intestines – our microbiome – began to be noticed, Professor Spencer took a keen interest.

Faecal transplants between patients are showing promising effects on the wellbeing of human patients and have been shown to cause behavioural changes in animal models. But investigating how this all might work presented another problem – no one knew very much about the sensory nerves in the gut.

“Until five years ago, no one had ever identified where one of the major populations of sensory nerve endings is located in any internal organ of any species,” says Professor Spencer.

So before he could even start to work out how the microbiome affected the mind, he needed to come up with a technique to observe the nerve endings. He did that by injecting a tracer into a collection of sensory neutrons near the spinal cords of mice. That has allowed scientists for the first time to visualise where the key sensory nerve endings are located and how they are involved in the gut-brain communication. This technique took a long time to develop.

“It’s really exciting. Because understanding how the contents within the gut wall communicate with the sensory nerves can uncover major clues into gut-brain health and wellbeing,” says Professor Spencer.

“The complex causes of mental health problems and the need to respond to such complexity requires that we take a multidisciplinary approach if we are to make any impact.”

He is now working on step two of the research to discover precisely how the sensory nerves in the gut are activated. It was precisely these unexpected complex links which Professor Mike Kyrios – Vice President and Executive Dean of Flinders’ College of Education, Psychology and Social Work – had had in mind when he proposed a new research centre on mental health.

The Órama Institute is designed to be a multi-disciplinary research institute for mental health, wellbeing and neuroscience.

“The complex causes of mental health problems and the need to respond to such complexity requires that we take a multidisciplinary approach if we are to make any impact,” says Professor Kyrios.

“Biological, social, developmental and individual factors are all involved in the cause of mental health problems, while solutions demand coordination of clinical, policy and technological advances from multiple professions, disciplines, public organisations and stakeholders.”

The Órama Institute, a Greek word meaning “vision”, contributes a unique blend of disciplines examining positive wellbeing and mental health disorders.

“We will also work with the full spectrum of external partners, locally, nationally and internationally, including state and federal governments, health and mental health services, professional groups, communities and community organisations,” says Professor Kyrios.

“We aim to be a major ‘go to’ mental health and wellbeing institute when government is seeking advice on mental health and wellbeing matters.”