Cortical processing of human gut sensation: an evoked potential study.

The rectum has a unique physiological role as a sensory organ and differs in its afferent innervation from other gut organs that do not normally mediate conscious sensation. We compared the central processing of human esophageal, duodenal, and rectal sensation using cortical evoked potentials (CEP) in 10 healthy volunteers (age range 21-34 yr). Esophageal and duodenal CEP had similar morphology in all subjects, whereas rectal CEP had two different but reproducible morphologies.