Grant: Project Grant

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) involves an altered relationship between the gut and the brain. Depression and anxiety are common in people with IBD. Compared to people with IBD alone, people with depression or anxiety and IBD can have more active disease, more visits to the doctor, more surgeries, and lower quality of life. IBD, depression, and anxiety are all related to differences in the brain. The brain and the gut send information to each other through the spinal cord. How the brain and spinal cord are related to IBD, depression, and anxiety is not clear. One way to study this is with a tool called magnetic resonance imaging. This tool gives information about the brain and spinal cord. The first aim of this study is to compare the brain information between people with IBD and depression or anxiety to that from people with IBD without depression or anxiety. Both groups will be compared to healthy people. Some people have depression or anxiety before IBD, and some have IBD before depression or anxiety. The second aim is to test how the brain is different between these two types of people. Knowing how this is different may guide prevention or treatment. The third aim is to test how the spinal cord carries information between the brain and gut in IBD. It will show how this is different in people with depression or anxiety in IBD or in healthy people. In the fourth aim, the link between the level of depression and anxiety, the differences in the brain and spinal cord, and gut inflammation will be tested. We will test stool samples from the people in our study to measure inflammation. By knowing how the brain and spinal cord are involved in IBD and in depression or anxiety in IBD, it may be possible to slow or stop the disease or improve the way the disease is treated.