Spontaneous enteric nervous system activity precedes maturation of gastrointestinal motility

Abstract Spontaneous neuronal network activity is essential in development of central and peripheral circuits, yet whether this is a feature of enteric nervous system development has yet to be established. Using ex vivo gastrointestinal (GI) motility assays with unbiased computational analyses, we identify a previously unknown pattern of spontaneous neurogenic GI motility. We further show that this motility is driven by cholinergic signaling, which may inform GI pharmacology for preterm patients.