ABSTRACT
The study of intestinal motility has traditionally been confined to the study of pressures within the lumen of the bowel or transmitted through a balloon transducer in contact with the wall of the bowel. Analogue recordings have been interpreted as giving information about the contractions of the smooth muscle of the bowel wall. In addition, studies of intestinal transit have implied a variety of methods to determine the movement along the bowel of appropriate markers. Gastrointestinal motor disorders underlie and are associated with many common complaints, and only rudimentary studies have been made to understand the nature of these disorders. A general overview of motility recordings from the gastrointestinal tract should be included at this point. The term motility is one of the less precise usages of physiology and medicine, and some confusion arises because of this imprecision. Both intraluminal and external transducers have been used for the study of alimentary motility.
