Dear colleagues,For the Organising Committee is an honour to host the XXXVIII Congress of the Spanish Society of Physiological Sciences (SECF) in Zaragoza. We are proud to welcome all of the participants to our city during this event that will take place between 13th and 16th September 2016.Throughout the different meetings, the SECF Congress has been considered an important instrument in attaining one of the main objectives of the Society, which is "to generate interest, stimulate research and disseminate knowledge of Physiology and its applications". We hope that this Congress, like all the previous ones, will offer us the opportunity to learn all about the current research activities of our colleagues in the field of physiology, encouraging contact between scientists and facilitating the exchange of information. Different studies will be presented in the form of plenary sessions, symposia and posters and will include superb scientific material that was carefully selected by the Scientific Committee. These studies, originating from laboratories from all over Spain, assure that the meeting will be a major scientific event. Topics cover a wide range of subjects, mainly related to Cell and Molecular Physiology, Neurophysiology, Endocrinology, Cardiovascular Physiology, Respiratory Physiology, Gastrointestinal Physiology, Renal Physiology, Nutrition, metabolism and obesity, Chronobiology, Bioengineering, Teaching of Physiology and Sports Physiology.As President of the Organising Committee, I greatly appreciate the effort of the contributing authors, and especially of the invited speakers, the chairpersons and colleagues from the Organising and Scientific Committees. Last but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to the commercial and institutional sponsors, without whose support it would have been impossible to organise this Congress.We hope this meeting will be fruitful, not only from the scientific point of view but also as a social event. Enjoy the hospitality of Zaragoza, its weather, the taste of its gastronomy and its rich history.Ignacio Giménez President of the Organising Committee J Physiol Biochem (2016) Micro-and nanotechnologies are strongly associated with the design and manufacture of the integrated circuits that are present in the chips of our computer or cell phone, being the basis of the actual technological revolution. Besides being so common in the devices of our daily life, in the near future they are foreseen to interconnect many everyday objects in what is called the Internet of things. These technologies are also an opportunity for many advances in medicine, not only for enhance the communications but to achieve smaller devices with many different features. Among the large amount of devices, it is noteworthy to highlight the pacemakers or cochlear implants. Micro and nanotechnology fabrication processes have achieved astonishing advances in manufacturing chips. I will show that these technologies are more accessible than what is believed and its implementation is possible to prod...