A multiverse analysis of stomach-brain coupling in humans

Abstract

The gastric-brain axis is a burgeoning field of neuroscience; however, inferences from neuroimaging research are often constrained by the high dimensionality of methodological choices potentially leading to disparate outcomes. This study addresses such concerns by performing a multiverse analysis of gastric-brain coupling in humans. We systematically evaluated 5,184 unique analytic pipelines using electroencephalography (EEG) and electrogastrography (EGG) data to survey the methodological sensitivity of gastric-brain coupling. Our results reveal that whilst analytic decisions influence the magnitude of observed coupling, at the group level the phenomenon remains relatively consistent across the parameter space. High inter-individual variance can, however, be observed. Coupling was observed in the alpha, theta, and beta bands, with the latter two bands showing coupling at the largest number of electrodes. Coupling across frequency bands was primarily seen in medial electrodes, with some left lateral coupling also observed. Overall, these findings suggest that EEG-EGG based measurement of gastric-brain coupling is likely to be consistent across a significant range of plausible analytic pipelines at the group-level in healthy participants, providing useful context for future studies.