The goal of a study published in Neurogastroenterology and Motility was to characterize in detail, the colonic motor patterns in children with chronic intractable constipation. This study recruited 18 children with chronic intractable constipation, wherein colonic motor patterns were recorded for 2 hours, prior to and after a meal, and then again after colonic infusion of bisacodyl. It was observed that the postprandial number of the retrograde cyclic propagating motor pattern was significantly reduced in these children compared with healthy adults, but not constipated adults. In addition, the number of pre-prandial long-single motor patterns was significantly higher in children than in healthy adults, as well as in constipated adults. Meanwhile, postprandial high-amplitude propagating sequences (HAPSs) were rarely observed in children (2/18), but HAPS could be induced by bisacodyl in 16 of 18 children. Hence, it was concluded that children with chronic intractable constipation exhibit an impaired postprandial colonic response consistent with that seen in adults with slow-transit constipation. It was stated that children may have attenuated extrinsic parasympathetic inputs to the colon associated with an increased incidence of spontaneous long-single motor patterns.