Neurohormonal control of gastrointestinal motor activity in conscious dogs

Interdigestive migrating contractions (IMC) were analyzed for their occurrence interval, duration, migrating velocity, and frequently in long term records obtained by means of chronically implanted force transducers in the main stomach and the extrinsically denervated fundic pouches or in the intact jejunum and the extrinsically denervated Thirty loop in 10 conscious dogs. Plasma immunoreactive motilin (IRM) was measured simultaneously. It was found that concomitant occurrence of IMC in the main stomach and pouch was closely associated with increase in plasma IRM concentration. On the other hand, in the extrinsically denervated jejunal loop, IMC-like contractions occurred independently of and more frequently than those in the intact jejunum and did not correlate with an increase in IRM concentration. It is concluded that gastric motor activity is under humoral control but in the jejunum, autoregulation by the intrinsic nerve plexus is more predominant than humoral factor(s).