蠕動運動の生物工学的研究

消化管の輸送機能のメカニズム

抄録

Peristalsis can generally be seen in the digestive organs of animals, and serves various purposes such as transporting or mixing the contents of the digestive tracts. Although this peristaltic movement has been studied by many physiologists, its neural controlling mechanisms have not yet been made clear.
This paper describes a biomechanical study on the peristaltic transport mechanism of gastrointestines. First of all, referring to the physiological knowledge established so far, the authors made an assumption about the structure of a neural network which should exist in the intestine itself to control a peristaltic motion (as shown in Fig. 2). Secondly, in order to examine the functional property of receptors, a simulation was carried out on a digital computer, and it was found that the receptors had to hold such a property as are responding to the inside pressure caused by the stuffed contents to be transported. Finally, referring to the above mentioned results a mechanical model for peristalsis was made, and its performances of simulation was examined. It resulted that this model expressed physiological phenomena on the intestinal movement very well, and was able to transport solid stuffs in the various shape.
Thus the authors believe that the neural network model proposed by them is valid and represents a principal a neural controlling mechanism to transport contents in the intestine.