The Enteric Nervous System ― 30 Years Later

Near 30 years ago a number of scientists working on the Enteric Nervous System (ENS) gathered at Flinders to discuss the advances and future of their research. A photograph (see below) captured the friendly and stimulating meeting attended by most of the major players in what was to become the new discipline of ‘Neurogastroenterology’. 

This year, the main Australasian Neuroscience Society (ANS) meeting was held in Adelaide, providing a perfect opportunity to recreate a similar follow-up ENS meeting. As such the ENS II 2014 meeting aimed to identify how far we have come in the field of enteric neuroscience, where is the future heading, and what technological advances have been made to address current and future unresolved questions.

30 speakers from around the world were invited to give talks to revisit the original expectations, the advances made since and the future directions on ENS research. This included three generations of investigators from 7 different countries.

This publication represents the majority of the proceedings of the conference on The Enteric Nervous System II 2014, a meeting held on February 1st - 2nd at the National Wine Centre of Australia, Adelaide. It was an Official satellite meeting of the 34th Annual Meeting of ANS, also held in Adelaide.

The 20 contributions contained within this submission are from international researchers in the field of the ENS, who reviewed, the advances made since the first similar meeting in the early 1980s and summarizes the present and future perspectives of neuro-gastroenterology. Some colleagues could not attend but did send greetings and their messages are included in these proceedings (included letters from Joe Szurszewski and Michael Schemann). 

Stuart Brierley is an NHMRC R.D Wright Biomedical Fellow and Head of the Visceral Pain Group, Discipline of Medicine, University of Adelaide located in the Centre for Nutrition and Gastrointestinal Diseases at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI).

Prof Brierley is an international authority on the different afferent classes innervating the gut, the mechanotransduction channels underlying their function, the interaction of these channels with inflammatory mediators, and how this changes in acute and chronic pain.

Prof Brierley is the current South Australian State Representative of the Australasian Neuroscience Society, the Treasurer of the Australasian Neurogastroenterology and Motility Association (ANGMA) and a Node leader for the Adelaide Centre For Neuroscience Research.

Marcello Costa was born in Turin, Italy, but migrated to Australia in 1970, where he became one of the founders of the new discipline of Neuroscience and the Australian Neuroscience Society (ANS), of which become President in the 1990s. He holds a personal chair in Neurophysiology at Flinders University, the first in Australia. He has published over 230 scientific papers in international journals, 55 reviews and chapters and written two books in enteric neuroscience and gastrointestinal motor functions.

He was foundation co-chair of the the South Australian Neuroscience Institute (SANI) from 2003 to 2010. He is also active in the field of philosophy of science and education in neuroscience to university students and to the broader public.