title: Excitability and Synaptic Transmission in the Enteric Nervous System: Does Diet Play a Role?
abstract: Changes in diet are a challenge to the gastrointestinal tract which needs to alter its processing mechanisms to continue to process nutrients and maintain health. In particular, the enteric nervous system (ENS) needs to adapt its motor and secretory programs to deal with changes in nutrient type and load in order to optimise nutrient absorption.The nerve circuits in the gut are complex, and the numbers and types of neurons make recordings of specific cell types difficult, time-consuming, and prone to sampling errors. Nonetheless, traditional research methods like intracellular electrophysiological approaches have provided the basis for our understanding of the ENS circuitry. In particular, animal models of intestinal inflammation have shown us that we can document changes to neuronal excitability and synaptic transmission.Recent studies examining diet-induced changes to ENS programming have opted to use fast imaging techniques to reveal changes in neuron function. Advances in imaging techniques using voltage- or calcium-sensitive dyes to record neuronal activity promise to overcome many limitations inherent to electrophysiological approaches. Imaging techniques allow access to a wide range of ENS phenotypes and to the changes they undergo during dietary challenges. These sorts of studies have shown that dietary variation or obesity can change how the ENS processes information-in effect reprogramming the ENS. In this review, the data gathered from intracellular recordings will be compared with measurements made using imaging techniques in an effort to determine if the lessons learnt from inflammatory changes are relevant to the understanding of diet-induced reprogramming.
authors.affiliation: School of Health and Biomedical Sciences, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, 3083, Australia. dr.p.bertrand@gmail.com.|School of Medical Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia. dr.p.bertrand@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Paul P
authors.initials: PP
authors.lastname: Bertrand
authors.affiliation: School of Health and Biomedical Sciences, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, 3083, Australia.
authors.forename: Kate E
authors.initials: KE
authors.lastname: Polglaze
authors.affiliation: School of Medical and Molecular Biosciences, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2007, Australia.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Science, Health, Education and Engineering, University of the Sunshine Coast, Maroochydore, QLD, 4558, Australia.
authors.forename: Shaun L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Sandow
authors.affiliation: School of Applied Sciences, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, 3083, Australia.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Walduck
authors.affiliation: School of Health and Biomedical Sciences, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, 3083, Australia.
authors.forename: Trisha A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Jenkins
authors.affiliation: School of Medical Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia.
authors.forename: Rebecca L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Bertrand
authors.affiliation: Departments of Medicine and Physiology, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, K7L 3N6, Canada.
authors.forename: Alan E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Lomax
authors.affiliation: School of Medical Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia.
authors.forename: Lu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004032:Diet; D017615:Enteric Nervous System / Q000502:physiology*; D041981:Gastrointestinal Tract / Q000294:innervation*; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D009435:Synaptic Transmission / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Enteric neuron; High fat diet; Obesity; Synaptic transmission