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Signal Transduction Mechanisms

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Biomechanics of the Human Stomach

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Abstract

“Little Brain”—the enteric nervous system (ENS)—of the human stomach is comprised of a large number of neurons, 46,260 ± 3.829 (neurons/cm2) (Mandić et al. 2016). Formed by a population of vagal and truncal derived neural crest multipotent stem cells (NCSCs), neurons colonize the organ in a rostral-caudal progression. They group together to form morphofunctional units—ganglia. Ganglia are diverse in terms of their number, morphology, size, and the number of neurons they contain. The density of ganglia distribution is not constant, i.e. it is relatively sparse in the fundus of the stomach and more dense in the antrum and pylorus. Quantitative analysis reveals that an average ganglion is formed of 3.4–5.4 neurons that are spread over a surface area of (1.8 ± 0.3) × 102 mm2 (Knowles et al. 2011). Most of the cells possess two major morphological forms—Dogiel type I and II—uniaxonal and multiaxonal, respectively, although bipolar, ovoid, polygonal, or stellar shapes have also been described. The actual size of matured neurons ranges within (29.6 ± 2.25) × 10 μm2 (Mandić et al. 2016).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computational Biology and Medicine Centre, Arabian Gulf University, Manama, Bahrain

    Roustem N. Miftahof

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Miftahof, R.N. (2017). Signal Transduction Mechanisms. In: Biomechanics of the Human Stomach. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59677-8_7

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