Intestinal Motility

UNTIL recently, three more or less distinct types of intestinal motility were recognized —namely, pendular movements, segmentation and peristalsis. Whereas peristalsis was thought to be dependent on the activity of the myenteric nerve plexuses (hence, neurogenic), the other two types of motor activity were thought to be myogenic. Current concepts of intestinal motility1 , 2 recognize neurogenic and myogenic factors as being equally important in the initiation and regulation of contractile activity. Furthermore, there is a tendency to replace the classic categories of intestinal motility with such descriptive terms as "propagated" and "nonpropagated," when one is referring to intestinal contractions, thus eliminating . . .