Brittany D. Needham

Jul 4, 2024 | science.org | Akiko Oguchi |Aaron Weimann |Bojana Müller-Durovic |Brittany D. Needham

Once when I removed an old lamp from the ceiling, I discovered crusty bent wires tangled inside, with bare metal exposed and rubber insulation peeling off. The lamp had not been moved in a decade. The inner workings were enclosed, supposedly shielded from such drastic decay with a protective layer around the wires. Not until the old lamp was removed was its potentially dangerous condition revealed. Similarly, our brains are an organized tangle of wires.

Oct 12, 2023 | frontiersin.org | Brittany D. Needham

IntroductionCatabolism of the aromatic amino acids phenylalanine and tyrosine by certain gut microbiota yields 4-ethylphenol [4EP] (Hsiao et al., 2013; Needham et al., 2022; Zheng et al., 2021). Dietary and systemic availability of aromatic amino acids and the presence of microbiota with the functional capacity to create 4EP regulate its production in the body.