This project is to enable us to use information about the microorganisms in our bodies to improve mental health and wellbeing.
The projects first step is to focus on recent developments in the understanding of the gut-brain-axis (GBA) to enable us to adapt our diet to improve our mental health.
"I started this project because my family has suffered, for as long as I can remember, because my Mum has paranoid schizophrenia. It is impossible for me to describe the impact this has had. I gave up explaining it to people years ago. Today I simply ask people to watch the movie A Beautiful Mind.
During the pandemic of 2020 I came across claims that bacteria that live in our gut are being linked to things normally associated with our brain such as our mood, feelings and even thoughts. Most importantly, I came across a paper, Microbiome and Schizophrenia , that claimed it had been found that people with schizophrenia had differences in their gut bacteria compared to people who didn't have the disorder.
I found that what people eat influenced the type of bacteria we have in our gut, so I asked myself:
Would my Mum, and our family, have suffered less if we had simply eaten differently?
I am hoping this project can provide people with tools to take advantage of this new area of science and help with the new area of medicine I have learned is called psychobiotics."
A key principle of this project is privacy. Most of us are aware of how concerned we should be over who has access to our data. If the bacteria in our gut has the ability to change our mood, feelings, thoughts and behaviors think about how value that would be. Worse still, think about how someone could influence our diet to create moods, feelings, thoughts and behaviors they want you to have.
So this project plans to have privacy by design. It will do that by adopting the design princples of Sir Tim Berners Lee's SOLID.
The project plans to provide the following, means to:
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publish data about a gut microbiome analysis
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receive and store data about one's gut microbiome
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link the gut microbiome data with knowledge about the neurological influences it has
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link the gut microbiome data with knowledge about the foods that feed it
It will also provide:
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An App to view the data and provide and revoke consent for others to access it
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A system that, with consent, consumes microbiome data for analysis over a population and removes data when consent is revoked
The solution will use open, interoperable, standards using SOLID as a design pattern and existing data definitions/schema/ontologies where they exist.
Hopefully we will build on other works. Works so far that might play a role are:
- @tingcosmos project MiKB4MD at the Centre for Integrative Bioinformatics VU in Amsterdam.
- @jannahastings [Emotion Ontology] https://github.com/jannahastings/emotion-ontology suggested by @trevorlazarus