Professor Hikaru Hashitani has been the head of Department of Cell Physiology at Nagoya City University Graduate School of Medical Sciences since 2010. He received his medical degree from Kyushu University in 1991 and started his residency in Urology. After having completed his PhD in Physiology at Nagoya City University in 1997, he developed his career as a research scientist, undertaking postdoctoral research at Melbourne University from 1997 to 1999 and at University of Oxford from 2000 to 2002. His primary research focus has been the cellular mechanisms underlying the initiation and the propagation of spontaneous electrical and calcium signals in smooth muscle, particularly in the urinary tract (exemplified by his recent ‘Smooth Muscle Spontaneous Activity: Physiological and Pathological Modulation’, Springer, Eds. Hikaru Hashitani & Richard Lang). More recently, his research interests have extended to the role and neurohumoral modulation of pericytes in generating spontaneous activity in the microvasculature. In this regard, the topic of his talk at ICS2021 is the suburothelial microvasculature of the bladder and its cooperation with the nerve plexus and possibly the urothelium.