{
  "abstract": "The gut microbiome develops from birth and is associated with cognition and mental health, but its relationship with early brain maturation remains unclear. We studied 223 typically developing infants aged 0-3 years using multimodal MRI and paired fecal shotgun metagenomics. Microbiome-wide association analysis linked microbial features to cortical morphology, white-matter microstructure, and functional networks. Regularized canonical correlation analysis identified structural-metabolic and functional-taxonomic covariance patterns. Sparse partial least-squares analysis recapitulated both full-sample CCA patterns and their defining structural and functional phenotypes, providing cross-method corroboration. Longitudinal canonical-score slopes did not significantly covary, whereas earlier neuroimaging CCA1 scores predicted microbiome CCA1 scores 1-6 months later in bidirectional autoregressive cross-lag models. These observational results identify coordinated developmental patterns and temporal ordering without establishing causality.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Department of Radiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States; Biomedical Research Imaging Center, University"
  ],
  "article_type": "New results",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 15,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "T. Li"
    },
    {
      "name": "Y. Yang"
    },
    {
      "name": "S.-H. Cho"
    },
    {
      "name": "B. R. Howell"
    },
    {
      "name": "Z. Wu"
    },
    {
      "name": "W. Yin"
    },
    {
      "name": "J. T. Elison"
    },
    {
      "name": "K. M. Huynh"
    },
    {
      "name": "S. Ahmad"
    },
    {
      "name": "P.-T. Yap"
    },
    {
      "name": "G. Li"
    },
    {
      "name": "L. Wang"
    },
    {
      "name": "H. Zhu"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "W. Lin"
    },
    {
      "name": "UNC/UMN Baby Connectome Project Consortium"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/9jh3hpvvcfnxw.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.64898/2026.09.23.753825",
  "fulltext_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.23.753825v1.full",
  "id": "9jh3hpvvcfnxw",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.23.753825v1",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY",
  "licence_label": "CC BY",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "biorxiv",
      "developmental biology"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": null,
  "pdf_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.23.753825v1.full.pdf",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-09-23",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/9jh3hpvvcfnxw.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:24:25Z",
      "native_id": "10.64898/2026.09.23.753825",
      "source": "biorxiv",
      "url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.23.753825v1"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "biorxiv:developmental biology",
      "subfield": "developmental-biology"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Microbes on the Mind: Multi-modal Neuroimaging Reveals Gut-Brain Axes in Infants",
  "title_text": "Microbes on the Mind: Multi-modal Neuroimaging Reveals Gut-Brain Axes in Infants",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:24:25Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/9jh3hpvvcfnxw",
  "venue": "bioRxiv",
  "versions": []
}