Mentally distressed and non-distressed Parkinson’s Disease patients have similar gut microbial compositions

Abstract

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease with symptoms of motor function loss and psychological changes. In the early stages of PD, patients display symptoms of depression and fatigue, which may be indicative of the disease. Studies have shown that both depression and fatigue are independently related to the gut microbiome of PD patients, however their combined effect on the gut microbiome remains largely unknown. In this study, we aimed to determine if there is a relationship between the gut microbiome of PD patients and their reported level of fatigue and depression. Here we define distressed patients as those with high fatigue and high depression scores, and non-distressed patients with low fatigue and low depression scores.

While linear correlation and alpha and beta diversity analysis showed no relationship between patients' fatigue and depression scores, an indicator species analysis revealed a higher abundance of Romboutsia and Erysipelatoclostridium genera in distressed PD patients and Parasutterella in non-distressed PD patients. These findings improve our understanding of how the severity of depression and fatigue in PD patients changes the gut microbiome. Further studies should investigate other mental health disorders faced by patients to provide a better understanding of the relationship between the gut microbiome, mental health, and PD.