Control of gastrointestinal motility by interstitial cells and neuronal projections

Funding Activity

Website
http://purl.org/au-research/grants/nhmrc/145614

Funding Status
Closed

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Funded Activity Summary

The gastrointestinal tract moves contents along its length in an ordered manner, so allowing digestion and absorption of gut contents. These movements are controlled by the properties of the cells in the muscle layers which in part make up the wall of the gastrointestinal tract, by activity in the nerves that innervate the gut and by hormonal factors. Recently we have shown that a key part of the control system lies in a set of special cells, interstitial cells, that lie amongst the muscle cells. This project will determine how these cells exert their control. These cells generate large long lasting waves of voltage which flow to nearby muscle cells so causing them to contract. The first aim is to determine how the special cells generate the command signals and the second aim is to determine how the signals spread to the muscle cells. The subsequent section of the project will determine how the behavior of the cells in the gastrointestinal tract are controlled by nervous influences. Disorders of the intestine are frequent and these appear to involve disrupted muscle contraction either because the intrinsic control system is malfunctioning or because the nervous system is unable to exert its normal influence. This project will determine how the normal control system works, invariably when this has been done with other systems, disease states are easier to rectify.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-01-2001

End Date: 01-01-2005

Funding Scheme: NHMRC Project Grants

Funding Amount: $845,540.00

Funder: National Health and Medical Research Council

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

Medical biotechnology diagnostics (incl. biosensors)

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

There are no SEO codes available for this funding activity

Other Keywords

Autonomic and enteric nervous systems | Control of internal [Ca2+] | Disordered gastric motility | Gastrointestinal motility | Gastroparesis, delayed gastric emptying. | Interstitial cells of Cajal-myenteric and muscular | Membrane potential and Ca imaging | Tachygastria, ectopic pacemaker activity.

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