Our bodies are colonized by a teeming, ever-changing mass of microbes that help power countless biological processes. Now, a new study has identified how these microorganisms get to work shaping the brain before birth.

Researchers at Georgia State University studied newborn mice specifically bred in a germ-free environment to prevent any microbe colonization. Some of these mice were immediately placed with mothers with normal microbiota, which leads to microbes being transferred rapidly.

That gave the study authors a way to pinpoint just how early microbes begin influencing the developing brain. Their focus was on the paraventricular nucleus (PVN), a region of the hypothalamus tied to stress and social behavior, already known to be partly influenced by microbe activity in mice la

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