2023-05-27 14:00:00
Swallowing disorders are not insignificant: the possible consequences are malnutrition, weight loss and dehydration. Thanks to German and American researchers, we know a little more about the process involved.
Swallowing disorders: the key role of the vagus nerve
According to their work published in the journal “Neuron“, it seems that ce trouble, which makes it difficult for some people to swallow food and/or liquids, would result from a defect in the vagus nerve which provides communication between the brain and many organs of the body.
Indeed, it is the sensory cells of the vagus nerve that detect and locate food in the esophagus and whose signals help transport food to the stomach. In the case of swallowing disorders, researchers describe how sensory cells in the vagus nerve respond to mechanical stimuli in the esophagus and trigger involuntary muscle movements, a process known as esophageal peristalsis.
To reach this conclusion, Dr. Teresa Lever, of the University of Missouri School of Medicine in Columbia (USA), developed a method that allowed researchers to observe swallowing in real time in free-behaving, unanesthetized mice.
Swallowing disorder: towards a better treatment?
After turning off their sensory neurons in the “vagal ganglia” – and “node” of neuronal bodies in the nervous system, which enable swallowing, scientists found that mice have “lost the ability to reflexively perform the appropriate muscle movements that transport food to the stomach, and they rapidly lost weight“, explains the lead author, Dr. Elijah Lowenstein.
So, in the absence of these cells in the vagus nerve, food gets stuck in the esophagus. In some mice, food also went up the throat.
“Our work can now help develop better treatments for swallowing disorders. One option would be to pharmacologically activate the mechanical receptors we have identified“, explains Professor Carmen Birchmeier, who heads the Laboratory for Developmental Biology and Signal Transduction at the Max Delbrück Center in Berlin.
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