Washington, May 25 (IANS): Exposure to a specific soil bacteria, believed to ease anxiety or depression, can make you smarter, says the latest research.

"Mycobacterium vaccae is a natural soil bacterium which people likely ingest or breath in when they spend time in nature," says Dorothy Matthews of the Sage Colleges in New York. She led the research with her colleague Susan Jenks.

Previous research studies on M. vaccae showed that heat-killed bacteria injected into mice stimulated growth of some neurons (nerve cells) in the brain that resulted in increased levels of serotonin and decreased anxiety.

"Since serotonin plays a role in learning, we wondered if live M. vaccae could improve learning in mice," says Matthews.

Matthews and Jenks fed live bacteria to mice and assessed their ability to navigate a maze compared to control mice that were not fed the bacteria.

"We found that mice that were fed live M. vaccae navigated the maze twice as fast and with less demonstrated anxiety behaviours as control mice," says Matthews.

In a second experiment, the bacteria were removed from the diet of the experimental mice and they were retested.

While the mice ran the maze slower than they did when they were ingesting the bacteria, on average they were still faster than the controls.

A final test was given to the mice after three weeks of rest. While the experimental mice continued to navigate the maze faster than the control mice, the results were no longer statistically significant, suggesting the effect is temporary.

"This research suggests that M. vaccae may play a role in anxiety and learning in mammals," says Matthews.

"It is interesting to speculate that creating learning environments in schools that include time in the outdoors where M. vaccae is present may decrease anxiety and improve the ability to learn new tasks."

These findings were presented at the 110th general meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in San Diego.