Name: Dr Emily Johns, Oxford University

Fellowship: Three Year Research Fellowship with partial funding from The Gut Trust

Grant Total: £47,652

Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a common disorder, yet no one really knows why sufferers experience symptoms such as pain, diarrhoea or constipation when there is apparently “nothing wrong” with the bowel. One theory about why people with IBS experience abdominal pain is that the bowel has become over sensitive, so that feelings or sensations from the gut, which would not under normal circumstances be painful, can suddenly cause severe pain (known as visceral hypersensitivity).

This study uses a technique called Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) to study how the brain processes painful signals from the bowel. It is planned to perform special brain scans on patients with IBS whilst they are experiencing abdominal pain to try and help work out how the brain processes this information, as it is believed that abnormalities in these systems can contribute towards the development of visceral hypersensitivity.

FMRI scans have been used to study IBS before, but scans have involved using instruments inserted in to the bottom (rectum) to produce a painful sensation which lasts typically for seconds at time. It has not been possible to scan patients whilst they are experiencing their own real pain, which may last for minutes or up to hours, because the MRI technology has not been available to study something that might go on for a period of time. A new MRI technique called Arterial Spin Labeling will enable us to study why patients with IBS experience pain.

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