Effects of Female Sexual Hormones on the Gastric Motility Activity following Traumatic Brain Injury in Female Rats

Gastrointestinal function disorder was seen frequently in traumatic patients. In regarding to useful role of sexual hormones on gastrointestinal motility disorders, the aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of female sexual hormones on the gastric motility following TBI induction in female rats. This experimental study was done on the 63 Wistar female rats (200-250 g) that they were divided to 9 groups involving: intact, OVX (ovariectomized rat), Sham+OVX, TBI (intact rats under TBI), TBI+OVX (ovariectomized rats under TBI) and OVX+TBI rats treated with vehicle, estradiol, progesterone or estradiol+ progesterone combination. Diffuse TBI was induced by Marmarou method. Intragastric pressure, contraction frequency and motility index were measured 5 days after the TBI induction by power lab device and balloon technique. The intragastric pressure (IGP) was decreased in OVX (6.98 ± 0.3), TBI (7.34 ± 0.3) and TBI+OVX (6.04 ± 0.1) (p<0.01) and treatment with estradiol (7.58 ± 0.5) and estradiol+progesterone (7.92 ± 0.5) increased IGP (p<0.01). Motility index also was decreased following TBI and estradiol+progesterone combination significantly increased the motility index (4.1± 0.4) (p<0.05, p<0.01). The main effects of brain trauma and sexual hormones were done principally by changing of gastric smooth muscle contraction activity not frequency of gastric contractions.