VISCERAL PERCEPTION

Non-invasive measurement of gastric accommodation in humans

W Schwizer, A Steingötter, M Fox, T Zur, M Thumshirn, P Bösiger, M Fried

Gastroenterology, University Hospital Zurich and Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University and ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr W Schwizer, Gastroenterology, University Hospital of Zurich, CH-8091 Zurich, Switzerland;
gasschwi{at}usz.unizh.ch

Gastric accommodation describes the reduction in gastric tone and increase in compliance that follows ingestion of a meal and involves at least two responses: "receptive relaxation" which allows the stomach to accept a volume load without a significant rise in gastric pressure and "adaptive relaxation" which modulates gastric tone in response to the specific properties of the meal ingested. However, there are considerable technical difficulties in measuring the accommodation process. The current standard barostat studies, and other methods such as conventional and three dimensional ultrasound, or single photon emission computed tomography have significant disadvantages. Preliminary findings from the development and validation of a new magnetic resonance imaging technique that addresses many of the deficiencies of previous methods are presented.

Keywords: gastric accommodation; magnetic resonance imaging; barostat; ultrasound; single photon emission computed tomography

Abbreviations: CNS, central nervous system; MRI, magnetic resonance imaging; SPECT, single photon emission computed tomography; POM, position and orientation measurement

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