Herziening van de centrale controle van de proprioceptie van de blaas

Overactive bladder (OAB) syndrome is a medical issue that could impair quality of life, with urinary urgency as its predominant symptom. This urgency sensation is actually a result of how afferent information from bladder processed by central micturition in brain. Current available pharmacotherapies are mainly targeting "the bladder" as their mechanism of action and for long they had become keystone treatment for OAB. Unfortunately, a number of patients remain refractory to this therapy or have intolerable side effects. Endocannabinoids are cannabimimetic substances that produced endogenously and work as cannabinoid receptor agonist. Beside the substances, endocannabinoid system also consists of receptors, ligands and enzymes that control the production and degradation process. There is emerging finding that this system has role in bladder sensory activity either during normal micturition, bladder overactivity or bladder inflammation in the peripheral or spinal level. Interestingly, it also exists in central nervous system and, as a matter of fact, the concentration of the substance varies between brain regions. It is the aim of this project to investigate the role of endocannabinoid system in the central micturition cycle control, in hope that the findings could lead to the discovery of innovative treatment strategy for OAB.