Abstract
Patients with abnormal sensations in the throat complain of various unusual feelings. However, a majority of these can not explain the exact quality and location of their feelings. In this study, I injected cholera toxin B (CTB) and fast blue (FB) into two anatomically different, but adjascent sites: the mucosa of the arytenoid region and the entrance of the esophagus, respectively, and observed labeled cells in the vagal ganglia to clarify the sensory mechanism of the nervous system at the ganglion level. The labeled cells as shown by CTB or FB were distributed within the jugular and nodose ganglia. A small number of the cells in the jugular ganglia were double-labeled. A majority of the labeled cells were a median or small size. These results suggest that the arytenoid region of the larynx and the entrance of the esophagus are anatomically distinct sites but not strictly separated in the sensory nervous system, and that the main sensory receptors in these sites are the nerve endings of the Aδ-or C-fibers, which are not highly specialized. Therefore, it is understandable that the specification of the quality and location of the stimuli is difficult at these sites.
