The central nervous system and its role in bowel and bladder control

Bowel and bladder issues have been noted to be coexistent in children, and treatment of bladder symptoms without concomitant targeting of bowel issues generally leads to failure. This article explores the potential roots for this persistent connection between bowel and bladder and the role that the central nervous system plays in affecting both. An ever-increasing pool of knowledge drawn from multiple medical disciplines has provided us with a wealth of functional imaging information that is allowing us to map the areas of the brain better with regards to bowel and bladder function. We explore these new findings and attempt to connect the dots between the central nervous system bladder and bowel dysfunction.