Effect of exogenous tetragastrin on gastric myoelectrical activity in humans

It is known that cutaneous electrogastrography (EGG) undergoes a change after food ingestion, showing increases in frequency and amplitude compared with preprandial values, but the factors regulating such changes remain to be elucidated. Paying special attention to gastrin, one of gastrointestinal peptides released after food ingestion, we administered tetragastrin in an exogenous manner and evaluated its effects on EGG in the present study. In healthy subjects, the intramuscular injection of tetragastrin significantly increased EGG frequency dose-dependently, but caused no significant change in amplitude. These results suggest that the increase in endogenous gastrin release is one of the mechanisms which underlies the increase in EGG frequency after food ingestion.