Microvascular blood flow and metabolic networking in the gut-pancreas-liver axis

人体对营养摄取的反应是通过协调许多不同器官的活动，特别是肠道、胰腺和肝脏的活动。这些器官共同作用，有效地处理我们所吃的食物中的营养物质，使我们能够构建和修复我们的身体，并提供能量。我们知道，这些机构需要协同工作才能有效，但我们目前对它们如何相互关联的了解有限。这些器官中的血液流动反映了它们的活动。我们已经开发了一种使用超声波的成像方法，这将使我们能够非侵入性地、非常详细地研究这些器官中的血流。我们打算优化这些方法，以观察不同食物对肠道、胰腺和大脑中血液流动的影响，并调查这些食物的哪些成分对新陈代谢产生不同的影响。我们还将研究这些器官的活动是如何在长期高脂肪饮食后或随着身体老化而变得功能失调的。了解肠道、胰腺和肝脏的正常协调功能，以及它如何应对挑战，将确定未来饮食或药物的靶点，试图保持健康的新陈代谢。开发这种成像方法也将减少未来用于这类研究的动物数量。

The body responds to nutrient intake through the coordination of the activity of a number of different organs, and particularly the gut, pancreas and liver. These organs act together to efficiently process the nutrients from the food we eat, allowing us to build and repair our bodies, and providing energy. We know that these organs need to work in concert to be effective, but our understanding of how they are interlinked is currently limited. Blood flow in these organs reflects their activity. We have developed an imaging approach using ultrasound that will allow us to investigate the blood flow in these organs non-invasively and at a very detailed level. We intend to optimise these methods to look at the effects different foods have on the blood flow in the gut, pancreas and brain, and to investigate which components of these foods drive the different effects on metabolism. We will also look at how the activity of these organs can become dysfunctional after a long time on a high fat diet, or as the body ages. Understanding the normal coordinated functioning of the gut, pancreas and liver, and how it changes in response to challenges, will identify targets for diets or drugs in the future to try and maintain a healthy metabolism. Developing this imaging approach will also reduce the number of animals used for these kinds of study in the future.