Queer genre writer, printmaker, and pianist | 👍🐺 | white settler Muslim disabled
regular brain: the collective mass of microbiota living in and in your body is greater than that of “your own” cells
galaxy brain: the effect your gut microbiome has on your neurochemistry is so large, your core personality and behavior could reasonably be said to fundamentally be the result of symbiosis
fwiw it's the number of microbiota, not their mass, that's greater than genetically-human cells (because they are much smaller than human cells, on average). and the latest studies put the ratio at closer to 1:1.
still symbiosis tho!
