Special edition of Microbial Ecology in Health and Diease: Gut-brain axis in history and culture

This special edition on humanistic approaches to the microbiota–gut–brain axis was inspired by two symposia organised by literary scholar Dr Manon Mathias at the University of Aberdeen in 2017 and at the University of Glasgow in 2018, both involving the participation of medical historian Dr Alison M. Moore and gastroenterological researcher Dr Jørgen Valeur, with all the contributors to this special edition having spoken at one or other symposium. Mathias and Moore are among the rare cohort of humanities scholars who approach past literary, cultural and medical concepts with the aim of contextualising current medical models and research findings, while Valeur is among the even rarer cohort of medical researchers and clinicians to see inherent value in humanistic understandings of health. It is the shared premise of all three editors that historical and cultural perspectives enrich the current understanding of microbial ecology, and the science of microbe–host interactions.