Table 5.

Possible correspondence between colonic motor patterns in different settings

Animal colon segments (in vitro)	Human isolated colon (in vitro)	Adult colonic recording (in vivo)	Paediatric colonic recording (in vivo)
Neural peristalsis	Not yet studied	High-amplitude propagating contractions; long or short single motor pattern	High-amplitude propagating contraction; long or short single motor pattern
Ripples	Not yet studied	Cyclic propagating motor pattern; intrahaustral activity	Cyclic propagating motor pattern
Colonic motor complex	Repetitive motor pattern	Simultaneous pressure increases	Simultaneous pressure increases
Colonic migrating motor complex	Not yet studied	Haustral boundary pressure transients	Not observed
Neural retrograde propagating contraction	Not observed	Slow retrograde motor pattern	Not observed

Isolated human colonic strips do not contain the entire neural circuits to generate complex motor patterns, but are useful to understand myogenic mechanisms, such as ripples associated with slow wave activity and slow phasic contractions and their modulation by neural inputs.