In vivo observation of a stomach road or ‘Magenstrasse’ for gastric emptying using MRI imaging in healthy humans

Almutairi, Fahad; Alyami, Jaber; Pritchard, Susan; Alsharef, Wala; Spiller, Robin C.; Gowland, Penny A.; Taylor, Moira A.; Marciani, Luca; Hoad, Caroline L.

Abstract

The presence of a ‘magenstrasse’, a central ‘stomach road’ for flow and mixing of foods and drinks in the stomach had been predicted from hydrodynamic modelling. Here a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) tagging technique was used to gain novel insights on the intragastric motion of breakfast porridges in 17 healthy humans. They consumed two similar breakfast porridge meals on separate days and tagging images with two different delay times were acquired 15 and 45 minutes postprandially, generating 128 data sets. Motion of the gastric contents was assessed by coefficient of variation (CoV) analysis across timeframes. The data showed that postprandial movement occurred already at the first imaging point after feeding. The motion of the gastric contents occurred along the central axis of the stomach appearing as a central ‘magenstrasse’ reaching the stomach body/fundus region in 73% of cases. Only in 10% of cases the displacement and smearing of the tag lines was detected close to the stomach walls. Seven % of data sets showed antegrade (towards the antrum) motion whilst a much larger percentage of motion was observed to be only retrograde (43%) or mixed antegrade and retrograde (50%). In conclusion, the MRI tagging method allowed novel insights into the movement of stomach contents using real model porridge meals and confirmed the existence of a central ‘stomach road’ for intragastric flow and mixing of food.

Citation

Almutairi, F., Alyami, J., Pritchard, S., Alsharef, W., Spiller, R. C., Gowland, P. A., Taylor, M. A., Marciani, L., & Hoad, C. L. (2023). In vivo observation of a stomach road or ‘Magenstrasse’ for gastric emptying using MRI imaging in healthy humans. Clinical Nutrition Open Science, 51, 35-43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nutos.2023.08.002

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 4, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Aug 23, 2023
• Publication Date: 2023-10
• Deposit Date: Aug 24, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 24, 2023
• Journal: Clinical Nutrition Open Science
• Electronic ISSN: 2667-2685
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 51
• Pages: 35-43
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nutos.2023.08.002
• Keywords: MRI; Tagging; Gastric contents; Motion; Intragastric handling; Breakfast
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/24423984
• Publisher URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667268523000360
• Additional Information: This article is maintained by: Elsevier; Article Title: In Vivo Observation of a Stomach Road or ‘Magenstrasse’ for Gastric Emptying Using MRI Imaging in Healthy Humans; Journal Title: Clinical Nutrition Open Science; CrossRef DOI link to publisher maintained version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nutos.2023.08.002; Content Type: article; Copyright: Crown Copyright © 2023 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism.