Magnetogastrographic detection of gastric electrical response activity in humans

Abstract

The detection and characterization of gastric electrical activity has important clinical applications, including the early diagnosis of gastric diseases in humans. In mammals, this phenomenon has two important features: an electrical control activity (ECA) that manifests itself as an electric slow wave (with a frequency of 3 cycles per minute in humans) and an electrical response activity (ERA) that is characterized by spiking potentials during the plateau phase of the ECA. Whereas the ECA has been recorded in humans both invasively and non-invasively (magnetogastrography-MGG), the ERA has never been detected non-invasively in humans before. In this paper, we report on our progress towards the non-invasive detection of ERA from the human stomach using a procedure that involves the application of principal component analysis to MGG recordings, which were acquired in our case from ten normal human patients using a Superconducting QUantum Interference Device (SQUID) magnetometer. Both pre-and post-prandial recordings were acquired for each patient and 20 min of recordings (10 min of pre-prandial and 10 min of post-prandial data) were analysed for each patient. The mean percentage of ECA slow waves that were found to exhibit spikes of suspected ERA origin was 41% and 61% for pre-and post-prandial recordings, respectively, implying a 47% ERA increase post-prandially (P < 0.0001 at a 95% confidence level). The detection of ERA in humans is highly encouraging and points to the possible use of non-invasive ERA recordings as a valuable tool for the study of human gastric disorders.

Biomagnetic signatures of uncoupled gastric musculature

“…Artefacts from respiratory and cardiac magnetic interference required us to filter magnetic data. As a result, we did not observe spiking activity reflected in the filtered magnetic signal from these data, although we have seen such activity in previous studies 32,33 Fig. 2Aiii, Biii.…”

Effects of body mass index on gastric slow wave: a magnetogastrographic study

“…Realistic torso models by Kim et.al showed that magnetic fields preserved the information of gastric electrical activity better than potential fields in the change of fat thickness or conductivity (Kim et al , 2012). In addition to the ability to detect gastric slow wave signals with less abdominal volume conductor effect, MGG can detect characteristics of slow wave propagation (Bradshaw et al , 2006), identify uncoupling of the electrical syncytium (Bradshaw et al , 2009b) and distinguish spiking activity (Irimia et al , 2006). …”

Acute cognitive deficits after traumatic brain injury predict Alzheimer’s disease-like degradation of the human default mode network

“…Presumably, injuries of greater severity can be associated with additional significant similarities, and future research should test this hypothesis. For example, the severity of TBI-and AD-related digestive disturbances may be associated with connectomic disruptions which affect similar cortical areas and which may be associated with injury/disease severity [42-45].…”