BDNF and Anxiety: In experimental infection models known to lead to alterations in the microbiota profile, BDNF expression was found to be reduced in the hippocampus and cortex of “germ free” mice, and this reduction in the expression of BDNF was found to associate with increased anxiety behavior and progressive cognitive dysfunction (Carlino et al., 2013; Foster and McVey Neufeld, 2013; Lu et al., 2013).