WG7: Imaging technologies applied to digestion

▶️ WG7 leaders:

✒️ Dr Paul Smeets / Senior Scientist, MRI Facility manager, AFSG and Central Works council member, Division of Human Nutrition and Health, Wageningen University (WUR), The Netherlands / Email: paul.smeets@wur.nl

✒️ Prof Luca Marciani / Professor of Gastrointestinal Imaging and Deputy Director of Translational Medical Sciences, School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, UK / Email: luca.marciani@nottingham.ac.uk

▶️ Overall objectives:

• To foster research and knowledge exchange in studies relevant to human digestion (in vitro, in vivo) involving the use of imaging techniques (MRI, scintigraphy, ultrasonography, microscopy).
• To harmonize data collection and analysis approaches, encourage data curation, data sharing and foster collaborative analyses to advance this field.

▶️ Specific objectives:

• To develop good practice guidelines for data collection , data analysis, data curation and sharing for each imaging technique of interest.
• To create a consensus approach for static and (semi)dynamic in vitro MRI studies, based on the INFOGEST model.
• To validate the meaning of changes in MRI-derived measures during digestion in different digestion contexts and for different foods / food constituents.
• To pursue ‘mega-analyses’ using pooled individual data from different studies across multiple sites in order to assess the effects of different participant, food and study characteristics on different aspects of gastrointestinal dynamics.

▶️ Main activites:

✔️ The Imaging WG7 has an own emailing list and messaging board on the JISC platform.

You can sign up at this address: Click HERE

✔️ Exchange of data acquisition and analysis protocols

✔️ Collaborative meta-analysis

▶️ OUTPUT:

➡️ Mega-analysis (24 studies and 366 participants) on variation in baseline gastric juice content (within and between individuals)

➡️ On-line newest relative paper published in Neurogastroenterology and Motility:

Julia J. M. Roelofs,  Guido Camps,  Louise M. Leenders,  Luca Marciani,  Robin C. Spiller,  Elise J. M. Van Eijnatten,  Jaber Alyami,  Ruoxuan Deng,  Daniela Freitas,  Michael Grimm,  Leila J. Karhunen,  Shanthi Krishnasamy,  Steven Le Feunteun,  Dileep N. Lobo,  Alan R. Mackie,  Morwarid Mayar,  Werner Weitschies,  Paul A. M. Smeets, Intra- and interindividual variability in fasted gastric content volume. Neurogastroenterology & Motility. 2024; 00:e14904. doi:10.1111/nmo.14904

↪️ Scientific key points:

• Fasted gastric content volume is highly variable, both within an individual and between individuals; a volume between 0 and 138 mL was determined to be within the normal range of variation (mean ± 3SD) of fasted gastric content volume in healthy young individuals.
• Women had lower fasted gastric content volume compared to men; age, body weight and body size were not associated with differences in fasted gastric content volume.
• Fasted gastric content volume can impact both digestion and drug dissolution, although exact implications of the observed variations remain to be studied.

▶️ Perspectives / Upcoming:

➡️ A mega-analysis on the determinants of gastric emptying dynamics as measured with MRI (pooling individual gastric emptying curves from published papers).

Preregistration: Click HERE

➡️ Working Group Symposium

➡️ Good practice review paper