Early-life gastrointestinal inflammation and the developing brain: Unravelling the pathways to long-term cognitive dysfunction

Table 2 Strengths and limitations of animal models

Strengths	Limitations
Allow direct control of diet, microbes, and inflammatory triggers	Rodent neurodevelopmental timelines differ from humans
Enable mechanistic dissection of the gut-immune-brain axis	Necrotizing enterocolitis and colitis models do not perfectly replicate human disease complexity
Permit invasive measurements: Cytokine profiling, neural imaging, electrophysiology	Microbiome composition differs significantly between species
Facilitate genetic manipulation (e.g., knockout mice)	Behavioral tests may not fully translate to human cognition or socio-emotional behavior
Allow testing of causal relationships via fecal microbiota transplantation, antibiotics, germ-free models	Artificial induction of inflammation may exaggerate severity relative to human infants