Journal: Developmental Neuroscience
Submission Deadline: November 30, 2025
Over the past two decades, the microbiota–gut–brain axis has been recognized as a key regulator of brain development, behavior, and function. This complex microbial ecosystem communicates with the brain through neural signaling, microbial metabolites, gut hormones, peptidoglycans, and immune-mediated pathways. Foundational studies using germ-free and antibiotic-treated animal models have shown that the gut microbiota influences key neurodevelopmental processes, including blood-brain barrier formation, microglial maturation, myelination, synaptogenesis, and complex brain functions, including cognition and social behaviors. These studies also highlight sex-dependent effects and critical developmental windows during which microbiota-brain interactions shape long-term neurodevelopmental trajectories.
Additional models demonstrate that microbiota alterations contribute to behavioral and neuropathological features of neurodevelopmental disorders. Emerging evidence further suggests that early-life microbial signals may influence brain tumor susceptibility during development via immune and metabolic pathways—an area that remains understudied.
This article collection will showcase experimental studies investigating how microbial metabolites, immune signals, and microbial components such as peptidoglycans affect the developing brain in both health and disease.
Topics of interest include:
- Maternal microbiota and fetal brain development
- Microbiota–immune–brain interactions during critical developmental windows
- Sex-specific effects of microbiota on neurodevelopment
- Early-life microbiota-based interventions (e.g., prebiotics, probiotics)
- Microbiota contributions to animal models of neurodevelopmental disorders
- Mechanistic studies of synaptogenesis, myelination, and neural circuit formation
- Microbiota influences on brain tumor susceptibility during early development
We welcome original research and review papers that advance our understanding of how the gut microbiome shapes brain development. Emphasis will be placed on preclinical models and molecular mechanisms relevant to neurodevelopmental health.
Please select the option “Call for Papers: The Gut Microbiome and the Developing Brain” when submitting your manuscript and mention this Call for Papers in your cover letter.
Developmental Neuroscience is a Subscribe to Open (S2O) journal, aiming to achieve Open Access without cost to authors or readers. Authors submitting in 2025 can publish Open Access without any charges.
Check out the Author Guidelines.