The symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), which include chronic abdominal pain associated with bowel motions of one of four types- diarrheal, constipating, mixed, or unclassifiable are difficult to treat. <br /><br />When compelled to limit their activities, such as work or travel, due to the sudden and unpredictable need to use the restroom, patients with IBS report a lower quality of life and social discomfort. <br /><br />Researchers recorded the autonomic nervous system activity of IBS patients and healthy subjects using a wearable device and tracked activities such as defecation and sleep. As a result, they found that, unlike healthy subjects, the sympathetic nervous system of IBS patients was activated 2 minutes before defecation and persisted until 9 minutes after defecation. <br /><br />Furthermore, the activation of the sympathetic nervous system was found to be associated with greater abdominal pain and lower quality of life.
