Mental disorders affect millions of people worldwide, but their diagnosis still relies on clinical observations rather than standard biological tests. In an attempt to identify reliable biomarkers, Chinese scientists have now launched the Brain-Gut Health Initiative. This is a large-scale longitudinal study combining neuroimaging, electrophysiology, microbiome sequencing, blood biomarkers, and clinical assessments across major psychiatric disorders. The findings reveal coordinated changes associated with gut microbes, brain networks, and symptoms, supporting the development of AI-assisted diagnostics and personalized treatments.
Mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder affect approximately one in seven people worldwide. These diseases pose a major and growing global health challenge, but the underlying biological mechanisms remain poorly understood. Current diagnostic practices rely heavily on the assessment of clinical symptoms rather than underlying causes, highlighting the urgent need to identify reliable biomarkers to guide clinical decision-making to improve treatment outcomes.
To fill this gap, a research team consisting of Professor Fengchun Wu and Professor Yuanyuan Fan from the Department of Psychiatry, Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, along with Professor Kai Wu and other researchers from South China University of Technology, launched the Brain and Gut Health Initiative (BIGHI). BIGHI is an ongoing long-term clinical study aimed at investigating how interactions between the brain and gut microbiome contribute to mental disorders. Their findings were published in the journal Volume 9. the study Published on January 1, 2026 and available online on March 3, 2026.
Emphasizing the novelty of their research, Professors Wu, Huang, and Kai Wu said:To our knowledge, BIGHI is the first prospective cohort in China dedicated to investigating MGBA in psychiatric disorders. ”
”BIGHI currently includes more than 1,200 participants between the ages of 18 and 45 who have been diagnosed with a mental illness, along with healthy controls.“Please take a look at the corresponding authors Professor Wu, Professor Fan, and Professor Kai Wu.”Participants will undergo multiple assessments to uncover potential biological markers, including clinical evaluation, neurocognitive testing, resting electroencephalography, structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), blood-based inflammatory and metabolic profiling, fecal genome sequencing, and detailed lifestyle and dietary surveys.. ”
Initial findings from this study suggest that certain features observed on electroencephalography may serve as non-invasive biomarkers of disease severity and potential treatment response. For example, changes in neural microstates (patterns of electrical activity in the brain) are associated with improvement in schizophrenia symptoms after neuromodulation therapy. Similarly, depressed patients often exhibit decreased alpha-band brain activity, which indicates decreased relaxed alertness.
Neuroimaging studies have also revealed widespread changes in brain network structure across different psychiatric disorders. Machine learning models trained on MRI data demonstrated distinguishing between schizophrenia patients and healthy individuals with high accuracy and identified distinct connectivity patterns associated with suicidal ideation in bipolar disorder and the influence of childhood trauma on depression.
”We also observed clear changes in gut bacteria within the cohort.“Add corresponding author.”Patients with psychiatric disorders showed a decrease in bacteria that produce beneficial short-chain fatty acids and an increase in pro-inflammatory microorganisms. Notably, these microbial changes were associated with symptom severity, oxidative stress, and cognitive performance, highlighting the relevance of microbiome changes in psychiatry.. ”
One of the most important contributions of this study lies in the integration of brain and gut datasets, which helped uncover the mechanisms underlying various diseases. When they combined brain and gut data to group patients, brain-derived profiles were more closely related to symptom severity, and gut-based profiles showed stronger associations with cognitive performance. Researchers have found that differences in gut bacteria are associated with changes in brain function. A combined analysis of neuroimaging, microbiome and blood biomarkers also revealed accelerated biological aging in patients with schizophrenia, supporting the growing view that mental illness can affect multiple body systems, not just the brain.
Although this cohort is currently based at only a single research center and long-term follow-up is ongoing, BIGHI is one of the most comprehensive efforts to characterize psychiatric disorders using an integrated multi-omics approach. This study highlighted that mental illness is a highly complex and heterogeneous condition, with distinct pathological features emerging across a variety of systems, including the gut microbiome, neuroimaging, electroencephalogram signals, and blood biomarkers.
Researchers believe that scaling up the BIGHI initiative could enable the development of reliable diagnostic tools, microbiome-based therapies, neuromodulatory strategies, and AI-powered strategies to manage mental illnesses. By providing compelling insights into the microbiome-gut-brain axis in mental illness, this work will support advances in biomarker-based diagnosis and personalized treatment strategies, paving the way to better mental health care.
sauce:
Science and Technology Review Publishing
Reference magazines:
Wu, F. others. (2026). Brain-Gut Health Initiative (BIGHI): A prospective cohort of mental disorders in China. the study. DOI: 10.34133/research.1142. https://spj.science.org/doi/10.34133/research.1142
