[Effect of diffusion potentials and various stomach regions on the behavior of the potential difference after pentagastrin].

Junction potentials at the tip of a 0.15 M NaCl- and a 3 M KCl-flowing bridge dependent on the surrounding electrolyte solution were measured and calculated. There was a close correlation between the calculated and measured junction potentials. The magnitude of the calculated and experimentally determined junction potentials at the tip of the 0.15 M NaCl-bridge was found to be almost identical. Provided that junction potentials were not subtracted from the measured potential difference pentagastrin diminished the simultaneous measured antrum and corpus potential difference in 11 volunteers. When however junction potentials from the experimentally determined potential difference had been subtracted pentagastrin induced a transient significant decline in the corpus potential difference but no significant changes of PD could be registered in the antrum. The observation that pentagastrin did not change the antrum-PD suggests that the pentagastrin effect is related to the parietal cells.