Vibrating capsule that measure gut-brain axis could transform clinical approaches

14 Jun 2023 --- Participants in a recent study swallowed a vibrating capsule to help researchers better understand the gut-brain axis and discovered a “gastric evoked potential” – a late neural response in specific brain areas – induced by capsule stimulation.

The method provides a novel way to measure the neural processes originating from the gut, which according to the scientists, could transform the current clinical approach.

Nutrition Insight speaks with Dr. Sahib Khalsa, lead author of the study and a psychiatrist and neuroscientist at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research (LIBR) in Oklahoma, US, about the findings and the method.

“Clinicians often treat patients who report prominent gut symptoms without a clear medical explanation. These are now commonly referred to as disorders of gut-brain interaction and include conditions such as IBS or functional dyspepsia.”

“There is now an understanding that these disorders, and other psychiatric conditions such as eating disorders, involve abnormal nervous system representations of internal sensory information.”

The procedure
Khalsa adds that the developed vibrating capsule method will facilitate future studies on identifying perceptual and neural indicators of abnormal gut-brain interaction. 

“The hope is that this will lead to more accurate diagnoses, an improved ability to identify successful treatment responses, and to predict who will respond to future treatments.”

The authors hope this will lead to more accurate diagnoses and an improved ability to identify successful treatment responses.The method is invasive only in the sense that participants needed to swallow the capsule to study their sensitivity to gut stimulation, which is “minimally invasive” as swallowing a pill or capsule is a common practice that people can perform themselves.

“There are other forms of gut stimulation that are more invasive, such as inflating a balloon in the stomach or rectum after a gastroenterologist has placed it.”

He adds that the capsule does not interfere with nutrition. 

“The shell is composed of an inert, non-toxic material called Polycarbonate Makrolon 2458. It can be taken with liquid on an empty or non-empty stomach. It is currently being investigated and used as a non-pharmacologic treatment for chronic constipation.”

Psychiatric potential
Khalsa says, “We are currently conducting studies to identify whether individuals with anorexia nervosa show abnormal gut-brain communication in response to capsule stimulation and whether these responses can help us predict who will relapse after treatment.”

The study, published in Nature Communications, states that the vibratory stimulation can potentially train individuals to become more accurately perceptive of sensations from different parts of their gut, such as the stomach and the small or the large intestines.

The researchers believe that the same approach can be used for psychiatric disorders such as eating disorders “for which premature gastric fullness and bloating are commonly reported but lack verifiable tests or biomarker indicators of pathology,” reads the study.

“This would provide a much-needed tool for assessing gut sensation in these conditions and could lead to more personalized and effective treatment strategies. It also opens up the possibility of identifying perceptual or biological mediators of successful treatment, which could serve as predictive markers for future therapeutic interventions,” Khalsa concludes.

By Beatrice Wihlander