Understanding the mechanisms of symptoms in patients with gastrointestinal disorders remains a great challenge. One of the major problems facing clinicians in this area is the limited information gained from subjective outcome measures commonly used to assess these conditions. To address this, various stimulation and recording techniques, commonly used by neurologists, have been adapted to study gastrointestinal sensory processing. This review article provides an overview of this expanding research area and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of each approach.
Copyright 2006 S. Karger AG, Basel