Spontaneous enteric nervous system activity generates contractile patterns prior to maturation of gastrointestinal motility.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Spontaneous neuronal network activity is essential to the functional maturation of central and peripheral circuits, yet whether this is a feature of enteric nervous system development has yet to be established. Although enteric neurons are known exhibit electrophysiological properties early in embryonic development, no connection has been drawn between this neuronal activity and the development of gastrointestinal (GI) motility patterns.

Methods

We use ex vivo GI motility assays with newly developed unbiased computational analyses to identify GI motility patterns across mouse embryonic development.

Key results

We find a previously unknown pattern of neurogenic contractions termed "clustered ripples" that arises spontaneously at embryonic day 16.5, an age ea

SUBMITTER: Dershowitz LB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11806083 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature