Federal Grant Award Summary

The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) awarded Massachusetts General Hospital a $667,788 Project Grant effective April 1, 2026, through January 31, 2031, under the Diabetes, Digestive, and Kidney Diseases Extramural Research program (CFDA 93.847). This research initiative will identify multidimensional signatures of gastric interoception in functional dyspepsia (FD) through advanced neuroimaging and analytical methodologies. The project will employ functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), resting state functional connectivity analysis, gut connectivity assessment, and self-report measures to examine three key dimensions of interoceptive processing: gastric attention, interpretation of gastric signals, and gut-brain signal integration in adults with FD compared to healthy controls and individuals with anorexia nervosa.

The study will generate research products including neurobiological data characterizing how the gut and brain communicate to sense, interpret, and integrate gastric signals at conscious and unconscious levels. By contrasting interoceptive processing across three cohorts (50 participants each with FD, healthy controls, and anorexia nervosa comparators), the research will test the central hypothesis that FD is associated with neural hyper-attention to gastric signals, fear-based interpretation of gastric signals, and impaired bidirectional gut-brain integration. These findings are intended to advance precision medicine approaches and inform treatment selection for the approximately 12% of U.S. adults affected by functional dyspepsia, a condition associated with significant morbidity and healthcare costs.