Gut-brain communication: A mysterious hidden dialogue

The 36th K N Seneviratne Oration delivered by Prof Nranga M Devanarayana, will be held at the Faculty of Medical Scieces, University of Sri Jayawardenepura on Saturday, November 18, in conjunction with the Annual Sessions of the Physiological Society of Sri Lanka (PSSL). The inauguration will be at 8.30 am and the Oration begins at 8.50 am.

Prof Devanarayana’s oration is on “Gut-brain communication: A mysterious hidden dialogue”.

Prof Devanarayana is the Chair Professor of the Department of Physiology, University of Kelaniya. She gained her MBBS from the University of Ruhuna and obtained her Doctor of Medicine Degree from the University of Kelaniya, and a PhD from the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Her main research interests include brain-gut axis, gastrointestinal motility disorders and functional gastrointestinal disorders. She has over 75 publications, including 7 book chapters and over 65 scientific papers in highly reputed indexed international journals. Her publications have received over 3000 citations, and her H index is 32.

She has presented more than 120 abstracts on a variety of topics on gastroenterology, both nationally and internationally. Previously she has delivered two orations - the Prof C C de Silva Oration at the Annual Academic Sessions of the Sri Lanka College of Paediatricians 2010 on ‘Recurrent abdominal pain syndrome in children: A Sri Lankan perspective’; and the Dr S N B Talwatte Memorial Oration at the Annual Academic Sessions 2020, Sri Lanka College of Radiologists on ‘Non-invasive assessment of gastric motility using ultrasound’.

She has won many national and international awards for her contribution to research on gastrointestinal motility, including the prestigious award for the Junior Investigator in Pediatrics from the International Foundation for Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders (IFFGD), USA in 2013; KN Seneviratne Award for Physiology 2009; Hiran Thilakaratne Award for Medicine 2007-2009; and 10 presidential awards for research in Sri Lanka from 2008 to 2018.

She has served as the Director of the Research Centre, and chairperson of the Research Management Committee, Faculty of Medicine, and Chairperson of the Board of Study in Medical

Sciences, Faculty of Graduate Studies, at the University of Kelaniya. She was a member of several editorial boards, including the World Journal of Clinical Pediatrics and the World Journal of Hepatology.

Prof. Devanarayana was also the President of the Physiological Society of Sri Lanka from 1999 to 2021 and secretary of PSSL in 2010.