MOULD, THE BRAIN, AND DEPRESSION

MOULD, THE BRAIN, AND DEPRESSION

A Biological and Neurological Reality is Not a Mood Problem.

Depression well known for decades is often linked to mould exposure, and is a biological injury driven by immune activation, neuroinflammation, mitochondrial disruption, and altered neurotransmission. This is devastating if mould is in your life, house, car, office and even public transport.

Mould is a neurotoxic exposure, not just an allergen.

Many indoor mould species produce mycotoxins as small, fat-soluble molecules that:

  • Cross the blood–brain barrier

  • Accumulate in neural tissue

  • Disrupt cellular respiration

  • Trigger immune activation inside the brain.

Common mycotoxins (including trichothecenes, ochratoxin A, and gliotoxin) are not neutralised by the liver efficiently and are poorly excreted in genetically susceptible individuals. This means exposure can create chronic internal toxicity, even after leaving the mouldy environment.

Neuroinflammation: the depression switch.

Once mycotoxins enter circulation, the brain responds through microglial activation.

Microglia are the brain’s immune cells. When activated chronically:

  • They release inflammatory cytokines (IL-1β, TNF-α, IL-6)

  • They reduce synaptic plasticity

  • They suppress dopamine and serotonin signalling

  • They interfere with neurogenesis in the hippocampus.

The hippocampus is the brain structure that:

  • forms and consolidates autobiographical memory (memories of yourself, your life, your experiences)

  • links events + emotion + context into a coherent story

  • helps you know “this happened to me” and “this is part of who I am”

Without a functioning hippocampus:

  • new memories of self don’t properly form

  • time feels disjointed

  • identity starts to feel fragmented

  • people describe feeling “not like themselves”

This is why damage or inflammation of the hippocampus is strongly associated with:

  • depression

  • PTSD

  • dissociation

  • mould-related neuroinflammation

  • chronic stress and cortisol overload

The hippocampus creates and retrieves memories of self but long-term storage is distributed across the cortex.

Think of it like this:

  • Hippocampus = the librarian (indexes, connects, retrieves)

  • Cortex = the library shelves (stores the content)

If the librarian is inflamed, exhausted, or shut down:

  • memories still exist

  • but you can’t access them properly

  • your sense of continuity weakens

That’s why people say:

“I don’t feel like myself anymore.”

It’s neurobiology.

Why this links directly to mould, stress, and inflammation.

The hippocampus is:

  • rich in glucocorticoid (stress hormone) receptors

  • highly sensitive to inflammation

  • energy-hungry (mitochondria dense)

This produces symptoms indistinguishable from “major depression” except the cause is inflammatory, not emotional. Depression here is a neuroimmune state.

The kynurenine pathway: why mood drops and anxiety rises.

Inflammation triggered by mould diverts tryptophan metabolism away from serotonin production and into the kynurenine pathway.

This results in:

  • Reduced serotonin availability

  • Increased production of neurotoxic metabolites (quinolinic acid)

  • NMDA receptor overactivation

  • Heightened anxiety, rumination, and despair.

This is why mould-exposed individuals often report:

  • Sudden personality change

  • Loss of motivation

  • Dark intrusive thoughts

  • Emotional flattening

  • Anxiety without psychological trigger

It's is biochemistry.

Mitochondrial failure and brain energy deficit

Mycotoxins impair mitochondrial electron transport chains, especially complexes I and III. Neurons are among the most energy-dependent cells in the body.

When mitochondria are impaired:

  • ATP production drops

  • Neural firing becomes inefficient

  • Cognitive effort feels exhausting

  • Motivation collapses

  • “Brain fog” dominates

Depression here is energy starvation at the cellular level. You cannot think your way out of ATP depletion.

Vagus nerve and limbic system disruption

Chronic mould exposure alters vagal tone and limbic signalling:

  • Reduced parasympathetic activity

  • Persistent sympathetic stress state

  • Amygdala hyperreactivity

  • Prefrontal cortex inhibition

This produces:

  • Emotional volatility or numbness

  • Poor emotional regulation

  • Reduced executive function

  • Feeling “trapped” or hopeless

It's is neurophysiology.

Why antidepressants often fail in mould-related depression

Standard antidepressants:

  • Do not remove mycotoxins

  • Do not reduce neuroinflammation

  • Do not restore mitochondrial function

  • Do not calm microglial activation

In some cases they worsen symptoms, because increasing serotonin availability without resolving inflammation increases kynurenine neurotoxicity.

This leads to misdiagnosis, medication cycling, and psychological harm.

The gut–brain–immune axis collapse.

Mould exposure also:

  • Disrupts gut barrier integrity

  • Alters gut microbiota

  • Increases systemic endotoxin load

  • Amplifies immune activation.

This feeds back into the brain through:

  • Cytokine signalling

  • Vagal pathways

  • Microbial metabolite imbalance.

The result is a closed inflammatory loop between gut, immune system, and brain.

Recovery is biological, not motivational.

Recovery requires:

  • Removal from exposure

  • Restoration of detoxification pathways

  • Reduction of neuroinflammation

  • Rebuilding mitochondrial capacity

  • Rebalancing microbial ecosystems

It is slow, layered, and physiological. People do not “snap out of it” because the injury is not conceptual.

Many people labelled as:

  • depressed

  • anxious

  • unmotivated

  • treatment-resistant

  • psychologically fragile

are in fact, neurologically injured by environmental biology.

Mould is not visible enough, dramatic enough, or simple enough for modern medicine to address cleanly, but its effects are real and profound.

Depression caused by mould is not a failure of resilience. It is the predictable outcome of neurotoxic exposure interacting with human biology. Until we address biological foundations, we will keep blaming minds for injuries that originate in environments.

Flooding, Mould, and the Collapse of Indoor Biology

After flooding, a house doesn’t just get “damp”, it undergoes a biological phase shift.

Water intrusion strips buildings of their normal microbial balance. Within days to weeks, fast-growing mould species colonise walls, carpets, insulation, and HVAC systems. These organisms thrive in low-competition environments, exactly what flood damage creates.

The result is not just visible mould, but:

  • airborne spores

  • volatile organic compounds

  • mycotoxins

  • disrupted indoor microbiomes

Humans living in these environments are then exposed continuously, often unknowingly. Illness frequently follows flooding not because people are weak, but because indoor ecology has turned hostile.

This is exactly what happens in degraded soil.

The Parallel: Sick Buildings and Sick Soil

In healthy soil:

  • diverse microbes compete and cooperate

  • pathogens are suppressed by balance

  • nutrients cycle efficiently

  • plants remain resilient under stress

In damaged soil:

  • diversity collapses

  • opportunistic organisms dominate

  • toxic byproducts accumulate

  • plants show stress, disease, and failure

Flood-damaged houses behave like dead soil:

  • biology is simplified

  • imbalance favours harmful species

  • recovery does not occur without intervention.

Just as you cannot fix dead soil with fertiliser alone, you cannot fix a biologically damaged building with bleach, paint, or air fresheners.

Both require restoration of healthy microbial systems, not chemical suppression.

Neurobiology Meets Soil Biology: The Mycobacterium Vaccae Link

There is a specific soil bacterium, Mycobacterium Vaccae, that provides one of the clearest bridges between soil microbiology and mental health.

This organism:

  • evolved alongside humans for millennia,

  • is common in healthy, living soils,

  • interacts with the immune system rather than the brain directly,

  • modulates inflammation through immune signalling pathways.

Exposure to M. vaccae has been shown in research settings to:

  • reduce stress-related inflammatory responses,

  • influence serotonin-related pathways indirectly,

  • support resilience under psychological stress.

Importantly:
This is not a chemical antidepressant effect.
It is immune modulation, which then affects brain function downstream.

In other words, it does not “force” mood change, it restores balance.

Why This Matters in Modern Environments

Modern life reduces exposure to beneficial environmental microbes while increasing exposure to harmful ones:

  • sealed buildings,

  • flood-damaged housing,

  • sterile indoor spaces,

  • degraded soils,

  • disrupted ecosystems,

This creates a double hit:

  1. increased neurotoxic exposure (mould, mycotoxins),

  2. reduced exposure to regulatory microbes that once trained immune balance.

The brain does not exist in isolation. It responds to the biological signals of the environment.

Soil as the Original Regulator

Living soil acts as a biological moderator:

  • suppressing harmful organisms,

  • supporting stable microbial communication,

  • producing metabolites that signal safety, not threat.

When soil is alive, ecosystems self-regulate. When soil is dead, chaos fills the gap.

Human biology follows the same rule.

Earthfood’s Role is Real for Today's Lifestyle.

Earthfood’s living soil system is designed to:

  • restore microbial diversity,

  • stabilise soil ecosystems,

  • favour cooperative, functional organisms,

    • reduce dominance of opportunistic biology.

When soils are alive and balanced, they once again become sources of beneficial microbial interaction, rather than reservoirs of stress and toxicity.

This is not about treating depression. It is about restoring biological foundations that support resilience in plants, ecosystems, and the humans who live within them.

Think of this... 

Flooding damages buildings.

Mould damages brains.

Dead soil damages ecosystems.

The common thread is biological imbalance.

Health, whether in homes, soil, or people, emerges when living systems are restored, not suppressed. That is the work of biology. And it always starts at the foundation.

For those interested, below, is some ways for restoration of your life after Mould.

First principle (non-negotiable).

You cannot heal hippocampal injury or neuroinflammation while exposure continues.

So yes, leaving the site matters, if mould or water-damaged biology is present.

Not forever necessarily. But ongoing exposure = stalled recovery.

This is not fear, it’s dose–response biology.

Step 1: Remove or reduce exposure (the biggest lever)

This includes:

  • Leaving a mould-affected home or workspace,

  • Avoiding flooded / water-damaged buildings,

  • Removing contaminated items (soft furnishings, papers),

  • Improving ventilation and dryness if staying temporarily.

People often try to “supplement their way out” of exposure. That does not work.

Exposure control comes first. Always.

Step 2: Calm the immune–inflammatory loop (not stimulate it)

Hippocampal dysfunction is driven by microglial activation, not lack of motivation.

What helps here is down-regulation, not pushing.

High-level supports (not prescriptions):

  • Sleep regularity (same bedtime, dark room),

  • Magnesium (which you’re already intuitively doing),

  • Gentle parasympathetic input (walking, warmth, breathing),

  • Avoiding inflammatory stressors (overwork, heat, conflict).

This phase is about safety signals to the nervous system.

Step 3: Support mitochondrial recovery (energy before mood)

Neurons can’t “feel better” without adenosine triphosphate. (ADP)

General principles:

  • Eat enough (undereating worsens brain energy failure),

  • Don’t force fasting during recovery,

  • Gentle movement > intense exercise initially,

  • Adequate hydration + electrolytes.

When energy returns, mood follows, not the other way around.

Step 4: Restore gut–immune signalling.

Because the hippocampus listens to immune signals coming from the gut.

This is where microbial balance matters, but again: support, not force.

Principles:

  • Reduce gut irritation,

  • Avoid aggressive cleanses,

  • Prioritise foods that don’t provoke symptoms,

  • Support microbial diversity gradually.

This is regulatory, not aggressive detox.

What ATP actually does.

ATP provides the energy for:

  • brain signalling, memory formation, mood regulation, muscle movement

  • detoxification, immune responses, repair and regeneration

No ATP → no function. Low ATP → everything feels hard.

In the brain specifically.

Neurons are extremely energy-hungry cells.

ATP is required for:

  • firing electrical signals, making neurotransmitters (serotonin, dopamine, etc.)

  • maintaining ion balance, forming new memories (hippocampus especially)

When ATP drops, people experience:

  • brain fog, depression, poor concentration, emotional flattening

  • feeling “not myself”, exhaustion that sleep doesn’t fix.

Where ATP comes from

ATP is made inside mitochondria (your cell’s power stations) using:

  • oxygen, minerals

  • glucose or fats, enzymes

  • intact cellular machinery

Anything that damages mitochondria (mould toxins, inflammation, chronic stress, poor sleep) reduces ATP production.

  • Mould toxins impair mitochondria, Inflammation diverts energy away from repair

  • The hippocampus needs high ATP to function, Low ATP = low mood, poor memory, loss of self-continuity.

Your health is in your hands  and your square metre of earth is your responsibility to return living microbes to, for those who come after you.

You know where to get your Nitrifying Living Soil Microbes called Earthfood - because that is the answer for all wellness and life on this planet as the foundation. Full Stop.

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