Investigating the relationship between gut microbiota and electrocortical signatures of feedback processing: an ERP study

Lenzoni, S ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3576-1187, Hunter, K ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0743-9724, Heym, N ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2414-8854, Heasman, B, Blanco, S ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3110-4622, Walton, G, Gibson, G, Poveda, C, Baguley, T ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0477-2492, Wang, GY, Mograbi, DC and Sumich, A ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4333-8442, 2025. Investigating the relationship between gut microbiota and electrocortical signatures of feedback processing: an ERP study. Psychopharmacology. ISSN 0033-3158

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Abstract

Rationale: Evaluative processing of action outcome is considered crucial for learning and adaptive adjustments of behaviour. Feedback-related negativity (FRN) is an event-related potential elicited by feedback presentation, with implicated neural sources in the anterior cingulate cortex. Bidirectional communications within the brain-gut-microbiota axis modulate cognition and behaviour, and microbial composition has been associated with medial prefrontal cortex function and clinical risk for depression.

Objectives: The present study aimed to investigate associations between specific gut microbiota and the FRN.

Methods: Twenty-nine healthy participants completed self-report measures of depression and a Faces and Feedback task during electroencephalography recording. Select implicated microbiota genera were enumerated from stool samples (Clostridium, Lactobacillus), along with plasma C-reactive protein (CRP) as an index of systemic inflammation.

Results: FRN amplitude for positive feedback was positively correlated with microbiota abundance. The relationship between Clostridium and FRN was confirmed by multilevel modelling analysis, controlling for depression and CRP. The latter was positively associated with FRN amplitude.

Conclusions: Findings suggest that the brain-gut-microbiota-axis may modulate or be modulated by self-monitoring processes. The current work provides insights into neurophysiological mechanisms underlying reward processing and indicates novel directions for therapeutic interventions, such as those that modulate the gut microbiome.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Psychopharmacology
Creators:	Lenzoni, S., Hunter, K., Heym, N., Heasman, B., Blanco, S., Walton, G., Gibson, G., Poveda, C., Baguley, T., Wang, G.Y., Mograbi, D.C. and Sumich, A.
Publisher:	Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date:	29 August 2025
ISSN:	0033-3158
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1007/s00213-025-06878-9 DOI 2492125 Other
Rights:	© The Author(s) 2025 This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Jeremy Silvester
Date Added:	05 Sep 2025 08:23
Last Modified:	05 Sep 2025 08:23
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/54300

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