A circumesophageal or circumpharyngeal nerve ring is an arrangement of nerve

ganglia A ganglion is a group of neuron cell bodies in the peripheral nervous system. In the somatic nervous system this includes dorsal root ganglia and trigeminal ganglia among a few others. In the autonomic nervous system there are both sympath ...

around the

esophagus The esophagus (American English) or oesophagus (British English; both ), non-technically known also as the food pipe or gullet, is an organ in vertebrates through which food passes, aided by peristaltic contractions, from the pharynx to the ...

pharynx The pharynx (plural: pharynges) is the part of the throat behind the mouth and nasal cavity, and above the oesophagus and trachea (the tubes going down to the stomach and the lungs). It is found in vertebrates and invertebrates, though its ...

of an animal. It is a common feature of nematodes, molluscs, and many other invertebrate animals, though it is absent in all vertebrate animals and is not structurally possible in simpler ones such as water bears. The nerve ring, also called a nerve collar, creates a complete and closed loop around the food-entry parts of the animal's anatomy. In a typical molluscan arrangement, these include the cerebral, pedal, and pleural ganglia, with the esophagus passing through the center of the ring. In nematodes, the ring consists of only two to four large associative cells connected to two paired lateral ganglia, two ventral ganglia, and a single unpaired dorsal ganglion. Among arthropods, the usual arrangement is a single ganglion (the cerebral) positioned above the esophagus, a single ganglion or nerve mass (the subesophageal) below it, and commissures connecting the two in a ring. Among the gastropods, the evolutionary torsion event which relocates the anus to near the head of the animal and allowing it to withdraw into its shell has relocated the commissure of the pleural ganglia into a "twist" (the right ganglion has relocated to the left side, and the left ganglion to the right).

References

{{reflist Arthropod anatomy Mollusc anatomy Animal nervous system