Effect of Cranial Nerve Stimulation on Orofacial Vascular Beds

¹ Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, New York University College of Dentistry, New York, N.Y.

Stimulation of the mandibular nerve does not cause any consistent changes in vascular resistance in the soft-tissue orofacial areas observed. Stimulation of the mandibular nerve causes some decrease in resistance in the vascular bed of mandibular bone. The maxillary nerve affects peripheral resistance in the upper lip, and the effect appears to be a balance between vasoconstriction, mediated probably by cervical sympathetic fibers, and vasodilatation of undetermined origin. The vasodilatation caused by maxillary nerve stimulation is elicited in atropinized animals, suggesting that the implicated fibers are not cholinergic.