The amount of compensatory sweating depends on the patient, the damage that the white rami communicans incurs, and the amount of cell body reorganization in the spinal cord after surgery.
Other potential complications include inadequate resection of the ganglia, gustatory sweating, pneumothorax, cardiac dysfunction, post-operative pain, and finally Horner’s syndrome secondary to resection of the stellate ganglion.
www.ubcmj.com/pdf/ubcmj_2_1_2010_24-29.pdf

After severing the cervical sympathetic trunk, the cells of the cervical sympathetic ganglion undergo transneuronic degeneration
After severing the sympathetic trunk, the cells of its origin undergo complete disintegration within a year.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1439-0442.1967.tb00255.x/abstract

Thursday, January 17, 2008

SYMPATHECTOMY REDUCES FEAR

and this is not good news. Fear is still one of our survival tools, we need fear to assess situations, to avoid dangerous situations and not take unnecessary risks. Fear is also one of the emotions on the palette of the complex human emotions. If it is not paralyzing, irrational fear, why would you want to reduce the scale of emotions you can experience. Not only that, but fear is very closely linked to motivation. Why would you want to switch that 'engine' off?

"Experiements in animals demonstrate that sympathectomy may retard averse conditioning. (DiGusto and King, 1972), most likely because sympathectomy reduces fear."
Clinical Neuropsychology 2003