Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2000 Dec;47 Suppl 4(Suppl 4):iv54-5; discussion iv58.
doi: 10.1136/gut.47.suppl_4.iv54.

Visceral pain-peripheral sensitisation

G F Gebhart  1
Affiliations
Review

Visceral pain-peripheral sensitisation

G F Gebhart. Gut. 2000 Dec.
No abstract available

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Representation of visceral sensory innervation of the gastrointestinal tract. The sensory innervation that anatomically exists in association with the sympathetic nervous system is shown on the left. These spinal visceral sensory fibres traverse both prevertebral (CG, coeliac ganglion, IMG, inferior mesenteric ganglion, SMG, superior mesenteric ganglion) and paravertebral ganglia en route to the spinal cord. Pelvic and vagus nerve innervation to the sacral spinal cord and brain stem, respectively, is shown on the right. (Modified from Sengupta and Gebhart.1)
Figure 2
Figure 2
Mechanosensitive pelvic nerve sensory fibres that innervate the urinary bladder or distal colon have low (<5 mm Hg) or high (>30 mm Hg) thresholds for response to distension. Both low (LT) and high (HT) threshold sensory fibres encode the distending pressure well into the noxious range (>40 mm Hg). (Modified from Sengupta and Gebhart.3)
Figure 3
Figure 3
Illustration of the presence of visceral hyperalgesia in patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). (Modified from Ritchie.5)
Figure 4
Figure 4
Visceral sensory fibres sensitise to experimental organ inflammation. In this example, responses of a high threshold pelvic nerve sensory fibre are shown before (control) and 30 minutes after intracolonic instillation of 2.5% acetic acid (inflamed). Note that response magnitude to distension (bottom) increases after inflammation and that response threshold decreases from about 30 to 10 mm Hg.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Example of a mechanically insensitive (silent) pelvic nerve sensory fibre. Before intracolonic instillation of the C fibre excitant mustard oil, this fibre did not respond to 100 mm Hg colonic distension (CRD) (not shown). After mustard oil treatment, the fibre began to discharge and acquired sensitivity to CRD. (Modified from Sengupta and Gebhart.1)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Gut. 1973 Feb;14(2):125-32 - PubMed
    1. Gastroenterology. 1994 Jul;107(1):271-93 - PubMed
    1. Pain. 1990 May;41(2):167-234 - PubMed