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Xander, 9, of McCall, has loved snowboarding and skiing since he was 2 years old, but his ability to enjoy them changed abruptly in December 2014, when he began suffering from tics, or spasms, accompanied by anxiety, mood swings, learning regression and night terrors.

The disorder, called Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome, causes the immune system to attack the brain in response to various underlying infections like strep, Lyme disease and staph.

There’s was probably one kid in your class who always got strep throat. It seemed like they were out every few months like clockwork, often for days at a time. Maybe you were that kid. Immunologists have known about this phenomenon for a long time—some children are just prone to getting strep repeatedly. But until recently, they had no idea why.

In 2014 John Cryan, a professor at University College Cork in Ireland, attended a meeting in California about Alzheimer’s disease. He wasn’t an expert on dementia. Instead, he studied the microbiome, the trillions of microbes inside the healthy human body.

Dr. Cryan and other scientists were beginning to find hints that these microbes could influence the brain and behavior. Perhaps, he told the scientific gathering, the microbiome has a role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease.

The idea was not well received. “I’ve never given a talk to so many people who didn’t believe what I was saying,” Dr. Cryan recalled.