The Impact of the Estrous Cycle on Abdominal Pain

作者：Aidan S. Bennett, Corey C. Baker, Taylor Alward, Stephen Vanner, David E. Reed, Alan Lomax · 发表于：Physiology · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.1152/physiol.2024.39.s1.1202 · 被引用次数：1 · 研究领域：Hernia repair and management

Background: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a chronic abdominal pain disorder that affects women twice as often as men. While luminal mediators of both host and bacterial origin have been implicated in modulating abdominal pain in IBS patients, gonadal hormones have also been shown to influence pain signaling. Estrogen has been identified as a pronociceptive mediator that can modulate central and peripheral neural pathways. Given this, we hypothesized that the estrous cycle modulates sensory neuronal excitability, thereby altering the sensitivity to luminal mediators and this contributes to the female predominance of IBS. Aim: Identify the impact of the estrous cycle on nociceptive signaling and compare the effects of fecal supernatants (FS) from male and female IBS patients on abdominal pain pathways. Methods: Current clamp recordings measured rheobase and voltage clamp measured voltage-gated Na + current in thoracolumbar dorsal root ganglia (DRG) neurons. FS from male and female IBS patients reporting high levels of abdominal pain were used. FS were perfused through male, female, and ovariectomized murine colonic preparations while performing extracellular colonic afferent nerve recordings to measure changes in action potential frequency during spontaneous firing and in response to colonic distension. Phase of estrous cycle in female mice was determined through analysis of vaginal swabs. Ovariectomies were performed 4 weeks prior to assays. Results: Current clamp recordin...