Ischemic stroke and intestinal flora: an insight into brain–gut axis

Abstract

Stroke is a type of cerebrovascular disease that significantly endangers human health and lowers quality of life. This understandably places a heavy burden on society and families. In recent years, intestinal flora has attracted increasing attention from scholars worldwide, and its association with ischemic stroke is becoming a hot topic of research amongst researchers in field of stroke. After suffering from a stroke, intestinal microbial dysbiosis leads to increased intestinal permeability and activation of the intestinal immune system, which in turn leads to ectopic intestinal bacteria and pro-inflammatory cells that enter brain tissue through the damaged blood-brain barrier. This exacerbates ischemia-reperfusion injury. Interestingly, after a stroke, some metabolites produced by the intestinal flora attenuate ischemia-reperfusion injury by suppressing the post-stroke inflammatory response and promotes the repair of neurological function. Here we elucidate the changes in gut flora after occurrence of a stroke and highlight the immunomodulatory processes of the post-stroke gut flora.