Refinement of animal studies on emesis by defining human biomarkers of nausea.

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Nausea, a very common human experience, is influenced by stressful and painful events. Even thoughnausea is well studied, little is known about what happens in our mind and body when we experiencenausea. This poses a dilemma to doctors as different individuals have different thresholds for nausea andrespond very differently to the same drugs used for treatment. Thus, a good human model is needed tostudy the bodily functions and areas of the brain involved in nausea to help identify factors predictingnausea. Our research group has pioneered methods to study nausea that can be used in the brain imaging environment to discover how the brain processes nausea.Our study aims to discover what happens in a person??a??a??s body and which areas of the brain areactivated in nausea using latest technology and new methods specially designed by our team of researchers.100 volunteers will watch a specially designed video that may cause nausea and another that doesn??a??a??t,and we will observe their response. Measures to be observed include their state of mind, hormonal changes,electrical activity of nerves automatically controlling internal organs and electrical activity of the gut. On 20subjects complaining of nausea and another 20 subjects who don??a??a??t complain of nausea in the first study willrepeat the study to confirm the results. Using the same method, 45 volunteers (15 highly, 15 moderate and15 not complaining of nausea) are observed for their brain activity. All will undergo two conditions, one inwhich they experience nausea and the other in which they won??a??a??t. The study might then shed some light onpredicting who??a??a??s prone to nausea.The human model developed will then be used to discover how established nausea treatment act in 30subjects using the same methods as study 1, following that 15 subjects who complain less of nausea withthe treatment will be investigated for the change in their brain activity.The model for observing the areas of the brain activated and how the body responds to nausea maydevelop tools to determine nausea susceptibility. Furthermore, this model may be used for studying nauseatreatment drugs to discover which drugs work better in which individuals.