Glossopharyngeal Nerve - Brainstem Connections

Brainstem Connections

The glossopharyngeal nerve is mostly sensory. The glossopharyngeal nerve also aids in tasting, swallowing and salivary secretions. Its superior and inferior (petrous) ganglia contain the cell bodies of pain fibers. It also projects into many different structures in the brainstem:

• Solitary nucleus: Taste from the posterior one-third of the tongue and information from carotid baroreceptors and carotid body chemoreceptors
• Spinal nucleus of the trigeminal nerve: Somatic sensory fibers from the middle ear
• Lateral Nucleus of Ala Cinerea: Visceral pain
• Nucleus ambiguus: The lower motor neurons for the stylopharyngeus muscle
• Inferior salivatory nucleus: Parasympathetic input to the parotid and mucous glands.