But he remembered enough to know that the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system was the part affected by local anesthetics, not the parasympathetic part apparently affected in the Noble and Owen cases.

The motor part of the facial nerve arises from the facial nerve nucleus in the pons while the sensory and parasympathetic parts of the facial nerve arise from the nervus intermedius.

When bright light is shone on the eye light sensitive cells in the retina, including rod and cone photoreceptors and melanopsin ganglion cells, will send signals to the oculomotor nerve, specifically the parasympathetic part coming from the Edinger-Westphal nucleus, which terminates on the circular iris sphincter muscle.