Committees

Rome Brain Imaging Committee

One of the newer working teams on brain imaging in the functional GI disorders was organized after the completion of the Rome III. This committee, led by Emeran Mayer (Chair) and Qasim Aziz (Co-Chair), began their work in July 2005 developing documents on brain imaging in the functional GI disorders. Additional committee members selected for the project were Doug Bremner (Emory University), Mark Kern (Medical College of Wisconsin), Braden Kuo (Harvard), Richard Lane (University of Arizona), Bruce Naliboff (UCLA), and Irene Tracey (University of Oxford).

The committee developed an outline, assigned topics to committee members, and worked through email to develop the first few drafts of the brain imaging document. In June 2006, the committee members convened a face-to-face meeting just before attending the 12th Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping in Florence, Italy and again Cambridge in September 2006, to review and revise the documents to resolve any gaps or conflicts. The committee has done an excellent job on timeline and both documents (journal article and larger chapter/monograph document) are very close to completion. The committee is currently considering submission of the journal document to Gastroenterology, GUT, or Clinical Gastroenterology & Hepatology, while the Rome Foundation plans to publish a monograph including the a larger more detailed brain imaging document, a document on severity in IBS, and a document on outcomes and endpoints on IBS in late 2008 or early 2009. The charge to this committee would be to review available literature on standards for brain imaging assessment in medicine and establish recommendations for the conduct of brain imaging studies in the functional GI disorders.