Electrical and Mechanical Activity of the Intestine: Experimental Assessment and Biophysical Modeling

The intestine is an organ whose working mechanism is still not fully understood today. The difficulty in understanding this mechanism comes from the fact that it is regulated by a complex network of signals of different nature. Granting that a multitude of experimental techniques have brought precious information on the electrophyiological processes associated to the intrinsic activity of the intestine, there is still some shadow cast over the boundaries of knowledge in this area. The purpose of this research work has been the development of methods to assess intestinal activity and the construction of a model reproducing important features of the electrical and mechanical dynamics, along with the investigation of the electrostimulation of the colon provoking muscular contractions.