[Intestinal motility and continuous enteral nutrition: electromyographic study in dogs]

In fasting dogs, intestinal motility is characterized by the recurrence of a cyclic pattern, named the myoelectric complex; when inhibited by meals, the myoelectric complex is replaced by typical postprandial activity. Numerous studies have been performed concerning small intestinal motility but they all concerned acute food intakes. On the contrary, the aim of our work was to investigate the influence of continuous enteral nutrition in dogs for different caloric loads. The results showed that after a temporary inhibition caused by the onset of continuous enteral nutrition, the myoelectric complexes reappeared, first with long and irregular intervals of recurrence, later and finally with the same characteristics observed during the fasting state. We conclude that small intestinal motility can present the typical features of the fasting state, in spite of the presence of nutrients in the digestive tract. The factors inducing postprandial inhibition of myoelectric complexes loose their effectiveness after a period of time which depends on the caloric load in continuous enteral nutrition.