Experimental studies on the irritable colon

doi:10.1016/0002-9343(51)90219-7

The American Journal of Medicine

Volume 10, Issue 1, January 1951, Pages 60-67

https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-9343(51)90219-7 Get rights and content

Abstract

When under stress induced by experimental stimuli, both healthy persons and patients with irritable colon may show disturbances in motility and engorgement of the sigmoid colon coincident with periods of emotional tension. Two patterns of altered sigmoid motility have been recognized: the one an increase in tone and/or wave-like contractions associated with overt moods of hostility and aggression; the other a decrease in tone and/or contractions associated with overt behavior symbolizing hopelessness and defeat. A possible relationship of these patterns to the mechanisms of spastic constipation and functional diarrhea is discussed.

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Cited by (83)

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2021, Gastroenterology Clinics of North America
Citation Excerpt :
Multiple studies have reported alterations in small intestinal and colonic motility in patients with IBS. Findings in patients with IBS include increased motility in fasting states and in response to meals and cholecystokinin,43 increased number of rapid contractions in response to balloon distention,44 accelerated transit time in a subset of patients with diarrhea-predominant IBS (IBS-D),45 and that changes in motility can be induced by psychological and physical stress.46 Although transit differs between bowel habit subtypes, abnormal transit is more likely to be present in patients with IBS-D (accelerated in up to 48%), and less so in patients with IBS-C (delayed in 21%).47
Binge eating, body mass index, and gastrointestinal symptoms
2013, Journal of Psychosomatic Research
Citation Excerpt :
Stress is known to be a common precipitant of BE [29] and many individuals who struggle with this behavior may be turn to BE in an effort to reduce anxiety or dysphoria [31]. In addition, stress is thought to play an important etiological role in functional GI disorders (the most common of which is IBS) [30,32–35]. The observed association could potentially reflect a pattern that would be expected to occur if stress were a critical third variable that influenced both BE and IBS.
Symptoms of both gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) are frequently reported by individuals who binge eat. Higher body mass index (BMI) has also been associated with these disorders and with binge eating (BE). However, it is unknown whether BE influences GERD/IBS and how BMI might affect these associations. Thus, we examined the potential associations among BE, GERD, IBS, and BMI.
Participants were from the Swedish Twin study of Adults: Genes and Environment (STAGE) and provided information on disordered eating behavior, BMI, gastrointestinal (GI) disorders, and commonly comorbid psychiatric and somatic illnesses. Key features of GERD and IBS were identified to create modified definitions of both disorders that were used as primary outcome variables. Logistic regression models were applied to determine the association between BE and each GERD/IBS both independently and in the context of BMI and other commonly comorbid psychiatric and somatic morbidities.
Prevalence estimates for GERD and IBS were higher among women than men (all p-values < .001). Only the association between BE and IBS was significant in both men and women after adjustment for BMI and the psychiatric/somatic morbidities.
BE appears to be an important consideration in the presence of IBS symptoms in both men and women, even when considering the impact of BMI and other commonly comorbid conditions. This association underscores the importance of routine assessment of BE in patients presenting with IBS to effectively manage the concurrent presentation of these problems.
A practical measuring system for intestinal pressure activity and its clinical application
2010, Biomedical Signal Processing and Control
To propose a practical, non-invasive method for monitoring intestinal pressure activity and introduce its clinical application on discrimination between the healthy subjects and the slow transit constipation (STC) patient subjects in the sense of medical statistics.
Nineteen healthy subjects and eight STC patient subjects participated in the experiments. The authors tried to find the optimal feature combination by using the probabilistic neural network (PNN) to separate these two groups and test their significant differences.
The statistical analysis revealed that the combination of the frequency and the average pressure of the pressure activity induced by colonic peristalsis was the optimal feature combination among the possible feature subsets, which was composed of several typical extracted features, and the discrimination accuracy of test samples was about 88.89%. The one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) analysis also showed that there were differences or significant differences between them.
Clinical experiments and analysis method related verified the practicability of the system, and the measurement technology developed for monitoring intestinal pressure activity was useful.
Psychophysiology of visceral pain in IBS and health
2008, Journal of Psychosomatic Research
Citation Excerpt :
This article does not attempt a comprehensive literature review; it is rather an essay, intending to describe the methods used to investigate the psychophysiology of gastrointestinal functions and their disorders and to discuss these on the background of recent neurobiological theories about the nature of visceral pain. One of the pioneers in the field of gastrointestinal psychophysiology was Almy [4] who, in the 1940s and 1950s, investigated the effects of emotions and different laboratory stress situations on the gastrointestinal functions of healthy subjects and patients with IBS. He measured various colonic parameters, including the frequency and amplitude of colonic wall contractions [4–6].
The psychophysiology of visceral pain as it relates to gastrointestinal motility, visceral sensitivity, and putative mechanisms of the processing of visceral stimuli by the central and peripheral nervous systems are discussed. Peripheral mechanisms may include low-grade mucosal inflammation, and it is likely that central nervous mechanisms such as neuronal plasticity at the level of the spinal cord and attentional bias at the cortical level are relevant for the chronification of visceral pain. From a psychophysiological perspective, visceral pain therefore remains a complex symptom because behavioral variables, such as the way an individual deals with stress, may be as important for the etiology of visceral pain as, for example, a history of inflammation.
Effect of acute physical and psychological stress on gut autonomic innervation in irritable bowel syndrome
2004, Gastroenterology
Background & Aims: Stress is an important causative factor in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). It remains unknown whether stress-related changes in gut function are mediated by altered autonomic efferent gut-specific innervation. We studied the effect of acute physical and psychological stress on autonomic innervation and visceral sensitivity in healthy volunteers and patients with IBS. Methods: Twenty-four patients (20 women) with constipation-predominant IBS and 12 healthy volunteers (8 women) underwent either physical (cold water hand immersion) or psychological (dichotomous listening) stress on separate occasions. Assessments included stress perception (visual analogue scale), gut-specific autonomic innervation (rectal mucosal blood flow [RMBF] by laser Doppler flowmetry), and viscerosomatic sensitivity (anal and rectal electrosensitivity). Results: Patients with IBS had a heightened baseline perception of stress (P < .01). RMBF decreased during physical stress (29.6% ± 2.8% and 28.7% ± 3.9%) and psychological stress (24.4% ± 2.1% and 23.5% ± 4.3%) in patients with IBS and controls, respectively (mean ± SEM). During physical stress, rectal perception (23.2% ± 6% vs .6% ± 3% [IBS vs control group, P < .05]) and rectal pain thresholds (27.0% ± 4% vs 1.3% ± 5%, P < .001) decreased in patients with IBS only. Psychological stress reduced thresholds for rectal perception (19.4% ± 6% vs 8% ± 6%, P < .01) and rectal pain (28.4% ± 4% vs 3.4% ± 3.8%, P < .001) in patients with IBS only. Acute stress elevated anal perception thresholds in patients with IBS but not controls (physical stress: 14.7% ± 14% vs −9.3% ± 11%, P < .05; psychological stress: 24.7% ± 9% vs 11% ± 11%, P < .05). Conclusions: Acute stress alters gut-specific efferent autonomic innervation in both controls and patients with IBS, although normalization is delayed in IBS. By contrast, only patients with IBS show heightened visceral sensation, suggesting involvement of a different regulatory mechanism, either central or peripheral.
Inhibited postprandial retrograde cyclic motor pattern in the distal colon of patients with diarrhea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome
2023, American Journal of Physiology - Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology

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^☆: Supported in part by generous gifts by Minnie H. Butt, Marie and John Zimmermann and John L. Given.

¹: From the Department of Medicine, The New York Hospital and Cornell University Medical College, New York, N. Y.

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Clinical studyExperimental studies on the irritable colon☆

Abstract

Gastroenterology

Gastroenterology

Clinical study
Experimental studies on the irritable colon☆