Mechanical properties and sensitivity to CCK of vagal gastric slowly adapting mechanoreceptors.

Sixty single afferent fibers with endings in the stomach wall were isolated from the cervical vagus of urethan-anesthetized Sprague-Dawley rats. All the fibers, most of which were spontaneously active, increased their discharge after gastric distension or during spontaneous contractions of the stomach. Because of this and the characteristic dynamic and static features of their response to inflation and deflation, they were identified as in-series tension receptors. Certain features of their responses, previously suspected from studies on reflex modulation of vagal efferent fibers or brain stem neurons, were directly confirmed. These included a broad range of mechanical thresholds and spontaneous firing frequencies that were correlated and a sensitivity only to dynamic stretch and active contraction in the highest threshold endings. The tension receptors could also be activated by circulating cholecystokinin, an effect unrelated to changes in intraluminal pressure and hence gastric wall tension, suggesting that there may be humoral modulation of visceral sensory signals that might be relevant to several behavioral situations, such as food intake regulation.