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.

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.

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.

Furthermore, the activation of the sympathetic nervous system was found to be associated with greater abdominal pain and lower quality of life.