Spinal Afferent Innervation of the Colon and Rectum

Despite their seemingly elementary roles, the colon and rectum undertake a variety of key processes to ensure our overall wellbeing. Such processes are coordinated by the transmission of sensory signals from the periphery to the central nervous system, allowing communication from the gut to the brai...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Frontiers in cellular neuroscience 2018-12, Vol.12, p.467-467
Main Authors: Brierley, Stuart M, Hibberd, Timothy J, Spencer, Nick J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Axons
Central nervous system
Classification
Classification schemes
Colon
Contraction
Diabetes
Fecal incontinence
Gene expression
Inflammation
Innervation
mouse
Neuroscience
Neurosciences
Nomenclature
Pain
Public health
Rectum
Reflexes
sensory nerve
Sensory neurons
sensory transduction
spinal afferent
Spinal cord
Structure-function relationships
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Despite their seemingly elementary roles, the colon and rectum undertake a variety of key processes to ensure our overall wellbeing. Such processes are coordinated by the transmission of sensory signals from the periphery to the central nervous system, allowing communication from the gut to the brain via the "gut-brain axis". These signals are transmitted from the peripheral terminals of extrinsic sensory nerve fibers, located within the wall of the colon or rectum, and via their axons within the spinal splanchnic and pelvic nerves to the spinal cord. Recent studies utilizing electrophysiological, anatomical and gene expression techniques indicate a surprisingly diverse set of distinct afferent subclasses, which innervate all layers of the colon and rectum. Combined these afferent sub-types allow the detection of luminal contents, low- and high-intensity stretch or contraction, in addition to the detection of inflammatory, immune, and microbial mediators. To add further complexity, the proportions of these afferents vary within splanchnic and pelvic pathways, whilst the density of the splanchnic and pelvic innervation also varies along the colon and rectum. In this review we traverse this complicated landscape to elucidate afferent function, structure, and nomenclature to provide insights into how the extrinsic sensory afferent innervation of the colon and rectum gives rise to physiological defecatory reflexes and sensations of discomfort, bloating, urgency, and pain.
ISSN:1662-5102
1662-5102
DOI:10.3389/fncel.2018.00467