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

Friday, June 26, 2009

remarkable changes in the nerves that remain

Chemical denervation and selected ganglionectomy studies have shown that loss of sympathetic or sensory innervation induces remarkable changes in the nerves that remain.

Sympathectomy. Unilateral removal of the SCG results in the reinnervation of the denervated cerebral vessel by sprouting nerves from the contralateral ganglion (Kahrstrom et al. 1986). Following chronic guanethidine sympathectomy there is a complete depletion of sympathetic cotransmitters NA and NPY from the dura mater but an increase in the expression of NPY in non-sympathetic axons (lacking small dense-cored vesicles) supplying cerebral vessels and the iris (Mione at al. 1990). The source of increased cerebrovasular NPY is thought to be preexisting parasympathetic cranial ganglia which normally express both NPY and VIP (Gibbins and Morris 1998).
Indeed, sympathectomy-induced DBH-immunoreactivity in the sphenopalatine (parasympathetic) ganglion occurs at the same time as a loss of VIP-immunoreactivity (Fan and Smith 1993). In the cerebral and uterine artery, loss of sympathetic nerves also leads to increased DBH-immunoreactivity in non-sympathetic nerves that lack TH and NA (Morris et al. 1991).

The loss of sympathtetic neurones and nerve fibres is also accompanied by striking increases in sensory innervation. This has been attributed to increased availability to NGF (as there are no sympathetic nerves with which to compete for uptake) which promotes the growth of sensory nerves (Kessler et al. 1983)

In the lung, sympathectomy induced a marked increase in CGRP-immunoreactive nerve density around the airways, and blood vessels.
The Autonomic Nervous System. Part I. Normal Functions by O. Appenzeller (Hardcover - Dec 1, 1999)

  • Category: Neurology & Clinical Neurophysiology

    • Publication Date: 1999-12-16 Publisher: Elsevier - Health Sciences Div