JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Sleep is an instrumental behavioral state with evidence supporting its active role in brain function, metabolism, immune function, and cardiovascular systems. Research supports pathways underlying bi-directional communication between the brain and gastrointestinal system, also known as the “gut-brain axis”. Primary research examining sleep and gut microbiome relationships continues to increase. Although current data includes both pre-clinical and clinical research, gut microbiome results are reported through a wide range of metrics (alpha diversity, beta diversity, bacterial compositional changes), which makes cross-study comparison challenging. Therefore, a synthesis of research examining sleep and gut microbiome relationships is necessary to understand the state of the science and to address gaps in the literature for future research.

Objective:

In this manuscript, we outline our scoping review protocol to evaluate and synthesize pre-clinical and clinical primary research focused on associations between sleep and the gut microbiome.

Methods:

The search strategy was facilitated through a medical research librarian and involve electronic databases including PubMed/MEDLINE, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science, CENTRAL trials database, BIOSIS Citation Index, the Zoological Record, and gray literature sources including medRxiv and bioRxiv preprint servers. Studies will be screened according to the aims, exclusion and inclusion criteria of the protocol. After screening, data will be extracted and synthesized from the included manuscripts according to pre-defined sleep and microbiome methodology metrics.

Results:

The search strategy yielded 4626 references that were imported for study screening, and source screening is currently underway by two independent investigators. The study findings and results will be disseminated through journals and conferences related to neuroscience, sleep physiology, bioinformatics and the microbiome.

Conclusions:

A scoping review of pre-clinical and clinical research is needed to synthesize the growing data focused on relationships between sleep and the gut microbiome. We expect the results of this synthesis will identify gaps in the literature and highlight pathways linking the gut-brain axis and sleep physiology to stimulate future research questions. Clinical Trial: Protocol is registered on Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/) and can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/69TBR.