Hexamethonium-resistant gastric contractions by stimulation of the vagal nuclei. An antidromic activation of vagal afferents?

Experiments were performed in chloralosed cats, laparotomized with ligated adrenals and spinalized in the cervical region. Blood pressure, heart rate and gastric motility were monitored. Stimulations were performed in two brain stem regions, viz. a "control region" including the nucleus ambiguous and a "dorsal region" approximately corresponding to the dorsal vagal nucleus and the solitarius complex. From both regions were regularly elicited gastric motor responses that were either excitatory, biphasic or inhibitory in direction, and always associated with prompt bradycardia and hypotension. After hexamethonium blockade of the "conventional" efferent vagal excitatory and relaxatory fibres to the stomach, stimulation of the control region no longer augmented gastric motility, while gastric contractions which could be abolished by atropine or vagotomy were produced from the dorsal region. The bradycardia and hypotension responses from both regions were also blocked by hexamethonium and then stimulations often led to delayed pressor responses, resistant to both vagotomy and atropine. The present results, together with previous findings (Delbro et al. 1981, 1982) suggest that the hexamethonium-resistant gastric contractions, elicited by stimulation of the mentioned dorsal region of the brain stem, are due to antidromic activation of afferent gastric vagal fibres with excitatory collaterals to intramural cholinergic neurons.