Authors: La JH, Kim TW, Sung TS, Kim HJ, Kim JY, Yang IS.

Institution: Department of Physiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.

Aim: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a functional bowel disorder. Its major symptom is bowel dysmotility, yet the mechanism of the symptom is poorly understood. Since the neurokinin-1 receptor (NK1R)-mediated signaling in the gut is important in the control of normal bowel motor function, we aimed to investigate whether the NK1R-mediated bowel motor function was altered in IBS, using a rat IBS model that was previously reported to show colonic dysmotility in response to restraint stress.

Methods: IBS symptoms were produced in male Sprague-Dawley rats by inducing colitis with acetic acid. Rats were left to recover from colitis for 6 d, and used for experiments 7 d post-induction of colitis. Motor activities of distal colon were recorded in vitro.

Conclusion: These results suggest that the NK1R-meidated colonic motor response is increased in IBS rats, due to the decrease in the nitrergic inhibitory neural component.

Study link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15633223&query_hl=12&itool=pubmed_docsum

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