Effect of muscarinic and nicotinic receptor antagonism on rat gastric motor activity.

Background/aims: Our aim was to investigate whether muscarinic and nicotinic receptors mediate nitric oxide release during motor events in the rat stomach.

Methods: Isolated rat stomach volume changes were monitored in an organ bath setup with an intragastric balloon coupled to a barostat and studied in basal conditions and during electrical vagal stimulation (EVS). In conscious rats, the intragastric pressure (IGP) was measured during test meal infusion.

Low gastric acid and high plasma gastrin in high-anxiety Wistar Kyoto rats.

Objective: Wistar Kyoto (WKY) rats are more susceptible to stress-evoked ulcerations than Sprague-Dawley (SPD) rats. We have already demonstrated that gastrin cells are more active and ghrelin cells less active in WKY rats than in SPD rats. The purpose of this study was to compare endocrine cell activity and gastric acid output in WKY and SPD rats.

A novel method to assess gastric accommodation and peristaltic motility in conscious rats.

Objective: To simultaneously study gastric accommodation and peristaltic motility in the whole stomach of conscious rats by measuring intragastric pressure (IGP) during test-meal infusion.

Material And Methods: After an overnight fast, a test-meal infusion system and a catheter to measure IGP were connected to a chronically implanted gastric fistula. IGP was measured during infusion of an X-ray-opaque, non-nutritious viscous test meal (0.

A novel method for study of gastric mechanical functions in conscious mice.

A novel method has been developed for simultaneous study of gastric emptying, antral motility, and gastric muscle tone in conscious mice. Intragastric pressure was measured during infusion of an X-ray-opaque, viscous meal through a chronically implanted gastric fistula (0.25 ml/min).

Characterisation of colonic accommodation in Wistar Kyoto rats with impaired gastric accommodation.

Defective colonic and gastric accommodations have been related to altered viscerosensitivity in irritable bowel syndrome and to functional dyspepsia, respectively. We assessed colonic accommodation in rats with impaired gastric accommodation to determine if altered accommodation can be regarded as a widespread pathophysiological alteration within the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Colonic accommodation during colorectal distension (CRD) was assessed in Wistar Kyoto rats (WKY), an animal model of impaired gastric accommodation, and in Sprague-Dawley (SD) and Wistar rats, considered normal.

Wistar Kyoto rats have impaired gastric accommodation compared to Sprague Dawley rats due to increased gastric vagal cholinergic tone.

Objective: Gastric balloon distension shows that, in comparison with Sprague Dawley (SD) rats, Wistar Kyoto (WKY) rats have a decreased volume response owing to a lower accommodation rate. The aim of this study was to compare the role of the vagal cholinergic and nitrergic pathways in the accommodation reflex in these rat strains.

Material And Methods: The volume response to ramp-tonic gastric balloon distension was pharmacologically manipulated by using L-NAME 25 mg/kg i.