Dyspeptic syndrome includes symptoms such as upper abdominal pain, nausea and/or vomiting. These symptoms are common to highly diverse processes such as duodenal ulcer, pancreatitis and even intestinal ischemia, among many others. However, most patients who consult for this syndrome do not have any of these well known processes. New mechanisms have been proposed that could explain the symptoms presented by these patients. Among these mechanisms are those relating to an alteration of normal gastroduodenal motor function, such as alterations of gastric compliance, antral distension, gastric accommodation to anomalous ingestion, and alterations of gastric emptying. The present review evaluates the role of gastric emptying in producing dyspeptic symptoms according to the evidence available to date. We discuss gastric emptying in patients with functional or idiopathic dyspepsia compared with that in the healthy population, the correlation between gastric emptying and dyspeptic symptoms, and the response of dyspeptic symptoms to the prokinetic therapies carried out to date.