Motor innervation
to the gills is believed to be involved primarily
with positioning of the rakers and filaments and
control of perfusion and has little to do with the
buccal pumping of water because the major ventilatory
muscles of the operculum and jaw are
innervated by cranial nerves V (facial) and VII
(trigeminal). Thus, the first purpose of this study
was to characterize efferent neural discharge in
the glossopharyngeal nerve to the first gill arch in
channel catfish.