Cephalic Phase of Gastric Secretion in the Rat

¹ From the Eli Lilly Research Laboratories, Indianapolis, Indiana

Nineteen sham-feeding tests were performed on eleven rats with a chronic gastric and esophageal fistula. As compared with man and the dog, a slight increase in acid output occurred in 17 tests, the increase being quite definite in 13 tests. Sham feeding had no effect on gastric secretion in 16 tests on rats when performed from 1 to 14 days after bilateral vagotomy. The vagotomy had a profound depressing effect on the interdigestive secretion, no free acid being found in the fasting secretion in any of the rats during the period of these tests. The vagi exert a marked secretory tone on the gastric glands, but the conditioned secretion of gastric juice is probably not of much physiological significance in the rats studied in these tests.