Hypoganglionic colorectum in the chick embryo: a model of human hypoganglionosis

Introduction  

The enteric nervous system is an intrinsic network of nerve cells and glia within the gastrointestinal wall, which originates in the vagal and sacral neural tube. The vagal neural tube is known to supply the colorectum with the majority of its nerve cells, and its ablation during early development produces a hypoganglionic colorectum. We hypothesized that the cholinergic nerve activity in the chick embryo hypoganglionic colorectum is decreased similar to the human situation and, therefore, this study is designed to investigate cholinergic innervations in the chick embryo hypoganglionic colorectum.