The vagus presents a well-marked ganglionic enlargement, which is called the superior ganglion of the vagus nerve. It contains afferent somatosensory neuronal cell bodies that provide sensory information from the external auditory meatus (auricular branch), cranial meninges (meningeal branch), and the external surface of the tympanic membrane. Their central fibers synapse in the sensory trigeminal nucleus.
It is a grayish color, spherical in form, and about 4 mm. in diameter.
Famous quotes containing the words superior and/or nerve:
“For by superior energies; more strict
Affiance in each other; faith more firm
In their unhallowed principles, the bad
Have fairly earned a victory o’er the weak,
The vacillating, inconsistent good.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“our nerve filaments twitch with its presence
day and night,
nothing we say has not the husky phlegm of it in the saying,
nothing we do has the quickness, the sureness,
the deep intelligence living at peace would have.”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)