Immediate Insulin Treatment Prevents Diabetes-Induced Gut Region-Specific Increase in the Number of Myenteric Serotonergic Neurons

To evaluate the effects of hyperglycemia and insulin treatment on proportion serotonin-immunoreactive (5-HT-IR) myenteric neurons, samples were taken from duodenum, ileum, colon diabetic, insulin-treated control rats 10 weeks after onset streptozotocin-induced hyperglycemia. Myenteric whole-mount preparations immunostained with anti-5-HT pan-neuronal anti-HuCD markers. In controls, 5-HT-IR neurons represent a small (~2.5%) total neuronal number in investigated gut segments. The was significantly higher duodenum (p < 0.01) 0.0001) diabetic compared to controls but exhibited slight increase ileum. Immediate resulted lower each segment (duodenum p 0.0001; ileum 0.01; untreated diabetics. Our study demonstrates that enhanced type 1 diabetes region-specific manner. prevents hyperglycemia-induced amount restores it level segment. Despite low hyperglycemia-related changes these may play crucial role gastrointestinal symptoms diabetes.