Fig. 7. Effects of ivn stimulation on the esophageal rhythm. (A) Intracellular recordings of the VD motor neuron (lower trace) and the LG neuron (middle trace), and an extracellular recording of the ion, illustrating the activity of the esophageal motor neuron (OMN; upper trace). ivn stimulation enhanced OMN activity. (B) Box plots (minimum, lower quartile, median, upper quartile, maximum) of OMN activity (left, bin width 6 s) and maximum instantaneous firing frequency (right) before (open boxes) and during (filled boxes) ivn stimulation. (C) Box plots showing spikes per burst, period, burst duration, mean intraburst spike frequency and duty cycle of OMN before (open boxes) and after ivn stimulation (filled boxes). ^*P<0.05, ^**P<0.01, ^***P<0.001 (Wilcoxon signed-rank test).