Purpose: Arterial spin labeling (ASL) can be used to provide a quantitative assessment of cerebral perfusion. Despite the development of a number of theoretical models to facilitate quantitative ASL, some key challenges remain. The purpose of this study is to develop a quantitative ASL method based on a macroscopic model that reduces the number of variables required to describe the physiologica...

BACKGROUND & AIMS Gastrointestinal motility is regulated by enteric neural circuitry that includes enteric neurons and glia. Enteric glia monitor synaptic activity and exhibit responses to neurotransmitters that are encoded by intracellular calcium (Ca2+) signaling. What role evoked glial responses play in the neural regulation of gut motility is unknown. We tested how evoking Ca2+ signaling in...

An investigation was made of the effect of changing mean transit time (MTT) by administration of drugs which affect colonic motility on faecal microbial mass in man. Senokot was used to accelerate and codeine and/or loperamide to prolong transit in subjects maintained on a constant high fibre diet. Doses of Senokot or codeine/loperamide were adjusted to halve or double transit time measured dur...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the usefulness of plain abdominal radiography as an evaluation method for bowel dysfunction in patients with spinal cord injury (SCI). METHODS Forty-four patients with SCI were recruited. Patients were interviewed about their clinical symptoms, and the constipation score and Bristol stool form scale were assessed. The colon transit time (CTT) was measured by using radio-...

To characterize alpha(2)-adrenergic control of motor and sensory functions of gastrointestinal tract and colon, we studied dose-related effects of clonidine (placebo or up to 0.3 mg po) by random assignment in 55 healthy humans. Gastrointestinal transit was measured in all subjects; in 35, we assessed colonic compliance, tone, and sensations of gas and pain during phasic distensions. Clonidine ...

constipation isa common clinical problem that can be functional or organic in origin. thiscondition sometimes overlaps with irritable bowel syndrome. initially, theclinician should differentiate between true and false constipation by clinicaland preclinical evidence such as colonic transit time. numerous patients believethat all defecation problems are called constipation and use laxatives with...

The pathophysiology of chronic constipation and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) involves consideration of disturbances in colonic sensorimotor activity, often resulting from disordered extrinsic and/or intrinsic innervations. The mechanisms by which normal colonic activity is altered to cause constipation or IBS are complex, as are the enteric neuropathologic changes that are present in some pat...

Postoperative ileus (POI) after abdominal surgery significantly lowers the life quality of patients and increase hospital costs. However, few treatment strategies have successfully shortened the duration of POI. Electroacupuncture (EA) is a modern way of administering acupuncture and widely used in various gastrointestinal (GI) diseases in the world. Here, we studied the effect of EA on POI and...

The study objectives were: to mine the complete exome to identify putative rare single nucleotide variants (SNVs) associated with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)-diarrhea (IBS-D) phenotype, to assess genes that regulate bile acids in IBS-D, and to explore univariate associations of SNVs with symptom phenotype and quantitative traits in an independent IBS cohort. Using principal components analys...