Exploration of Neuroscience

Table 3. Summary of key challenge areas.

Challenge area	Research priority	Potential outcome
Microbiota variability	Stratify patients based on microbiota–host profiles	Precision psychobiotic therapy
Biomarker identification	Develop composite microbial–mitochondrial panels	Early diagnosis and response monitoring
Multi-omics integration	Combine metagenomic, proteomic, and metabolomic data	Network-level understanding of MDD
AI in psychiatry	Predict individualized treatment response	Digital microbiome–mitochondria modeling
Ethics and translation	Establish global safety and equity standards	Ethical and accessible implementation

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MDD: major depressive disorder.

Declarations

Author contributions

OMA: Conceptualization. Data curation, Investigation, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing, Supervision. CAC, OEO, OCA, and ODA: Data curation, Investigation, Writing—review & editing. SJA: Writing—review & editing. All authors read and approved the submitted version.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval

Not applicable.

Consent to participate

Not applicable.

Consent to publication

Not applicable.

Availability of data and materials

Not applicable.

Funding

Not applicable.

Copyright

Publisher’s note

Open Exploration maintains a neutral stance on jurisdictional claims in published institutional affiliations and maps. All opinions expressed in this article are the personal views of the author(s) and do not represent the stance of the editorial team or the publisher.

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