# SimulScan: Simultaneous functional and dynamic MRI for evaluating swallowing across age and in neurogenic dysphagia

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN · 2024 · $568,766

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Dysphagia, or difficulty swallowing, affects over 9 million adults in the US annually, with neurologic
conditions, such as stroke and Parkinson’s disease (PD), being the number one cause of the disorder.
Dysphagia in neurologic disease is associated with significant negative outcomes, such as prolonged
hospitalization, respiratory compromise, depression, malnutrition, and mortality. A better understanding of
both the central (neural) and physiological/biomechanical deficits seen in neurogenic dysphagia will enable
better clinical management through improved identification of patients and the development of targeted
and personalized therapeutic interventions. No current tools exist to enable the concurrent 3D visualization
of swallowing physiological/biomechanical events along with the associated functional brain activity that
drives those events. This project will optimize and validate a novel multimodal imaging method and
analysis platform to visualize and quantify both swallowing physiology events and brain function during
swallowing using magnetic resonance imaging. Using a recently-developed framework for fast dynamic
imaging, a technique will be demonstrated and validated that will achieve full 3D imaging of the functional
swallowing anatomy along with imaging of brain function, simultaneously. The resulting method will provide
unprecedented high-spatial and high-temporal resolution images of the dynamic swallowing motions and
the brain activity associated with this critical life-sustaining function and has the potential to offer a new
state-of-the-art diagnostic and treatment outcome tool for neurogenic dysphagia. Utilizing the new
multimodal imaging method, we will demonstrate the sensitivity to changes in swallowing function and
neural activity by examining a group of young (aged 18-25 years old) and older (aged 60-85 years old)
healthy adults performing incidental swallows and other oropharyngeal tasks. We will then establish the
preliminary sensitivity of this new approach in identifying phenotypes of neurogenic dysphagia in patients
with stroke and Parkinson’s disease (n=60 for each condition). The technique will enable the determination
of differential dynamic motion and fMRI signatures of dysfunction within and across conditions/diseases.
This line of research will have an important positive impact because it has the potential to improve
neurogenic dysphagia characterization and to provide the foundation to start improving diagnostic
accuracy, prognosis, and treatment of this debilitating condition in the future.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10837781
- **Project number:** 5R01AG078513-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
- **Principal Investigator:** Georgia Malandraki
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $568,766
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-05-15 → 2028-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10837781

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10837781, SimulScan: Simultaneous functional and dynamic MRI for evaluating swallowing across age and in neurogenic dysphagia (5R01AG078513-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10837781. Licensed CC0.

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