“Though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back… she would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.” - Aslan, C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

SWANK Dispatch: Gut Bacteria Make Your Neurotransmitters

SWANK Dispatch: Gut Bacteria Make Your Neurotransmitters

Mood, Mind, and Microbiome Are Not Separate Things

Filed Under: Neuro-Gastro Harmony / Microbial Signaling / Emotional Terrain


What This Means:

The microbes in your gut—especially beneficial bacteria—literally manufacture the chemical messengers that control your:

  1. Mood
  2. Sleep
  3. Focus
  4. Motivation
  5. Stress response
  6. Emotional resilience

These messengers are called neurotransmitters.


Which Gut Bacteria Make What?

1. Serotonin

  1. ~90% of your serotonin is made in the gut
  2. Used for mood, calm, digestion, and sleep
  3. Made by Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium, and other commensals

If your gut is inflamed or overrun with fungus, serotonin production plummets.


2. GABA (Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid)

  1. Your main calming neurotransmitter
  2. Reduces anxiety, slows racing thoughts, lowers blood pressure
  3. Produced by certain strains of Lactobacillus rhamnosus and others

Gut imbalance = no brakes on stress = panic, insomnia, tension.


3. Dopamine

  1. Controls pleasure, motivation, and reward
  2. Gut bacteria create precursors to dopamine
  3. Healthy microbes help convert tyrosine and phenylalanine into usable signals

Dysbiosis = brain fog, apathy, depression, lack of drive


4. Norepinephrine & Epinephrine

  1. Regulate alertness, fight-or-flight, and blood sugar
  2. Produced in part by gut-enteric signaling—bacteria help modulate release


5. Acetylcholine

  1. Essential for memory, cognition, and muscle movement
  2. Gut bacteria assist in choline metabolism and neuroplasticity signaling


How Do Gut Bacteria Do This?

  1. They break down food into amino acids + metabolites
  2. They ferment fiber into short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), which regulate brain inflammation
  3. They signal the vagus nerve, which connects gut to brain like a psychic USB port
  4. They influence gene expression that determines how neurotransmitters are used


Why It Matters:

If your gut microbiome is:

  1. Fungal-dominant
  2. Antibiotic-wrecked
  3. Sugar-fed
  4. Inflamed
  5. Missing key bacterial species

Then your neurotransmitter system is misfiring.

You don’t feel bad because you’re broken.

You feel bad because your neurochemical assembly line is out of workers.


Conclusion:

Gut bacteria don’t “help” your brain.

They build your mood chemistry from scratch.

You’re not emotionally unstable.

You’re microbially understaffed.

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