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Inhibition of Glial Metabolism Decreases Intestinal Afferent Nerve Activity
Author(s) -
MirandaMorales Marcela,
OchoaCortes Fernando,
Christofi Fievos L,
VillalobosHernandez Egina C,
BarajasLopez Carlos
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.30.1_supplement.1002.1
Subject(s) - enteric nervous system , stimulation , central nervous system , neuroscience , nervous system , small intestine , afferent , biology , medicine , chemistry , endocrinology
The enteric nervous system is embedded in the walls of the gastrointestinal tract and regulates among other functions: digestion, secretion and motility in synchrony with the central nervous system. The enteric ganglia consist of neurons and glial cells; these outnumber neurons and appear to participate in maintaining their homeostasis. A lot is ignored about the physiological role of glial cells in the enteric nervous system. Recent experimental data indicates that inhibition of the functions of glial cells, decrease the gastrointestinal transit and contraction in response to field stimulation in mice. However, there are not reports on their role in the mesenteric afferent nerve functions. The objective of this work was to investigate the role of enteric glia in the multiunit afferent activity in mesenteric nerves, both spontaneous and induced by increasing intraluminal intestinal pressure. Multiunit afferent nerve activity from a segment of jejunum from C57BL/6 mice were recorded, a nerve was dissected from the mesenteric border. We recorded the spontaneous action potentials in response to the application of intraluminal pressure. Extraluminal application fluoroacetate (5 mM during 10 min) decreases afferent response to intraluminal pressure progressively. The maximum effect is observed around 50 minutes, time in which the response of the high threshold fibers is almost inhibited and the low threshold fibers decrease to one third of the control value. In addition multiunit basal activity remains unchanged. Our results suggest a relevant role of enteric glia in mesenteric afferent nerve activity. The fact that the spontaneous activity is unchanged suggests that participation would be on sensory mechanisms that detect the tension of the intestinal wall. Support or Funding Information This work was supported by Fiscal Funds. Scholarships of EC‐VH was supported by CONACYT.