Dissociation of the functioning of a human parotid gland following trauma of the tympanic nerve (a pseudocolchicine phenomenon).

In a group of patients with break-up of the tympanic nerve, restitution of unconditioned reflexes in a denervated parotid gland was accompanied with both an increased sensitivity to cholinergic agonists and a sharply perverted paradoxal secretory response to antagonists (atropine, scopolamine, metacine, chlorosile). The above phenomenon is similar to the syndrome resulting from the effect of colchicine on the nervous-muscle connection when, mediatory transmission remaining intact, a post-denervational increased sensitivity to mediators of cholinergic excitation is observed.