[Difference in motility between anterior and posterior gastric wall after anterior and/or posterior truncal vagotomy].

The present experiment was designed to see the effect of anterior or posterior truncal vagotomy on the movement of anterior and posterior walls of the stomach with the use of electromyography and force transducer. A total of 28 dogs were prepared with strain gages and bipolar electrodes at both anterior and posterior walls of the stomach. Three types of vagotomy, namely, anterior, posterior and bilateral truncal vagotomy were carried out consecutively or independently. Postoperatively, myoelectrical and contractile activities were compared between the anterior and the posterior wall of the stomach at fasted and fed state. Results are summarized as follows: 1) Motor activity of the control dogs could be divided into digestive, intermediate and interdigestive patterns. 2) Following 3 types of vagotomy, an appearance of the interdigestive pattern showed a tendency of delay which was more evident after the posterior than after the anterior truncal vagotomy. 3) There was little difference in contractile force of the antrum before and after 3 types of vagotomy, except that the hunger contraction was found weaker after all the 3 types of vagotomy. Vagotomy showed little effect on the frequency of basic electrical rhythm at any conditions. 4) In any observation mentioned above, there was no significant difference in the gastric motility between the anterior and posterior wall of the stomach. In conclusion, the patterns of motor activity were more affected after the posterior than after the anterior truncal vagotomy. Little difference in gastric motility, however, was found between the anterior and posterior wall of the stomach after all the 3 types of vagotomy.