Welcome to Speaking of Psychology, a bi-weekly podcast from the American Psychological Association.

I'm your host, Caitlin Luna. The topic for this episode is the mind-gut connection.

Is your gut a second brain? Emerging research is showing that our brains and our

gastrointestinal systems may be more connected than we previously thought, potentially holding

profound influence over our moods, mental health, and sense of well-being. This exciting new

frontier of scientific knowledge has captured a lot of people's attention, yet there's still so much we don't know.

Our guests for this episode are Dr. Faith Dickerson, a psychologist who is the head of the Stanley

Research Team at Shepard Pret Health System, where she researches the role of infectious

and immune factors in serious mental illness, and Dr. Emeryn Mayer, a medical doctor who

specializes in gastroenterology.

He's one of the world's leading experts on brain-gut interactions in GI disorders.

Both were featured in the cover story on this topic in the December 2018 issue of the Monitor on

Psychology, APA's magazine for members that covers science, education, psychology practice, and more.

Welcome, Dr. Dickerson and Dr. Mayor.

Hello.

Nice to be in the show.

Let's start off with a basic question, Dr. Mayor.

What is a gut microbiome and what does it do?

So the term microbiome is being used to refer both to the population and relative abundances of microbes that live in our gut,

as well as its function, basically related to the genetic material and the ability to generate metabolites and substances that can influence

various functions throughout the body.

So the microbiome is both the relative abundance of organisms as well as the function of the

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