Fig. 5.
Stretch-response functions of low- and high-threshold colonic stretch-sensitive afferents are presented in A and B. Responses to stretch (action potentials) were evenly binned into 10 bins; data are presented as means ± SE. An example of sensitization of a high-threshold colonic afferent is shown in C; data are summarized in D. C: response of the same afferent to stretch before (top) and after (bottom) exposure (3 min) of the receptive ending to inflammatory soup (IS). Stretch-response functions of 6 high-threshold colonic afferents (3 muscular, 3 muscular/mucosal) before (pre-IS) and after (post-IS) are presented in D. IS significantly (P < 0.05) increased stretch responses and significantly (P < 0.005) reduced response threshold (inset in D).