A vagal nerve branch controls swallowing directly in the seawater eel

By developing a new in vivo method to evaluate the esophageal closure, which reflects inhibition of swallowing, we demonstrate that the vagal X1 branch projected from the glossopharyngeal-vagal motor complex (GVC) controls the upper esophageal sphincter (UES) muscle directly. Although eel vagal nerve consisted of five branches, other branches (X2, X3, X4 and X5) did not influence the esophageal pressure. When the X1 nerve branch was stimulated electrically, the balloon pressure in the UES area increased with optimum frequency of 20 Hz. Since similar optimum frequency was observed both in the pithed eel and in the isolated UES preparation, such characteristic of X1 nerve is not due to anesthetic used during experiment. As the isolated UES preparation consists of muscle cells and nerve terminals, and as the optimum frequency of the nerve terminal is identical with that of the X1 branch, it is most likely that the X1 nerve branch is identical with the nerve terminals within the UES preparation. On the other hand, since the GVC neurons fire spontaneously at around 20 Hz, the optimum frequency of 20 Hz means that the eel UES is usually closed vigorously and relaxed only when the GVC neuron is inactivated. The effect of X1 stimulation was inhibited by curare, but not by atropine, indicating that the X1 nerve branch releases acetylcholine, which acts on the nicotinic receptor on the UES striated muscle. Beside vagal nerve X1 branch, spinal nerve SN2, SN3 and SN4 also contributed to the UES closure, but SN1 did not influence the UES movement. However, since the efficacy of these spinal nerve stimulations is about 1/10 of that by vagal X1 branch, the eel UES may be controlled primarily by a vagal nerve X1 branch, and secondarily by spinal nerves (SN2, SN3 and SN4).