A Simulated Anatomically Accurate Investigation Into the Effects of Biodiversity on Electrogastrography

Chronic gastrointestinal motility disorders present a significant problem in current clinical practice with new methods needed to perform routine screening and accurate diagnosis. Electrogastrography (EGG) is a non-invasive method that provides insight into the underlying gastric electrical activity. However, widespread adoption of this technique has been limited due to an incomplete sensitivity and specificity. Recent simulation studies have tried to address these issues by providing a theoretical framework for reliably distinguishing between gastric slow wave dysrhythmias. However, these studies have been limited to a singular dipole, torso, and the stomach representative model. In this paper, we aim to address those shortcomings by developing multiple stomach and torso models with multiple moving dipoles to investigate the influence of biodiversity on EGG. Four anatomically accurate models were developed based on a range of human CT scans. This allowed investigations into the influence of normal and dysrhythmic (gastric re-entry and ectopic pacemaker) gastric electrical activity on the resulting EGG. These investigations identified areas of significant morphological difference in EGG traces for all cases, but the accuracy of these methods were based on a well-defined normal baseline. The results also suggested that the areas identified varied significantly as a result of biodiversity. These findings indicate that high-resolution multichannel EGG methodologies are required to reliably account for anatomical biodiversity.