The fundamental gastrointestinal functions include motility, sensation, absorption, secretion, digestion and intestinal barrier function. Digestion of food and absorption of nutrients normally occurs without conscious perception. Symptoms of functional gastrointestinal disorders are often triggered by meal intake suggesting abnormalities in the physiological processes are involved in the genera...

The goal of this short review is to summarize recent data on gastrointestinal changes with aging, focusing on gastrointestinal motility disorders, and mucosal variations. First of all, this review focused on gastrointestinal motility disorders with aging, even though an increased prevalence of several gastrointestinal motor disorders (i.e., dysphagia, dyspepsia, anorexia, and constipation) occu...

The most common and challenging gastrointestinal motility disorders in children include gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), esophageal achalasia, gastroparesis, chronic intestinal pseudo-obstruction, and constipation. GERD is the most common gastrointestinal motility disorder affecting children and is diagnosed clinically and treated primarily with acid secretion blockade. Esophageal achala...

Background: 5-HT4 receptor plays important roles regulating gastrointestinal motility, enteric neuronal signaling and visceral pain in the gastrointestinal tract. Over the past decade, the 5-HT4 receptor has been highlighted as an attractive drug target for the treatment of gastrointestinal motility disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome, chronic constipation, functional dyspepsia, gastropa...

There is a growing body of experimental and clinical evidence to indicate that stress influences gastrointestinal motility. The most common pattern of gastrointestinal motor alterations induced by a variety of different stress factors is that of delayed gastric emptying and accelerated colonic transit. Central administration of corticotrophin releasing factor mimics both of these effects. This ...