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

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Anti-inflammatory role of sympathetic nerves in chronic intestinal inflammation

Sympathectomy reduced acute DSS colitis but increased chronic DSS colitis. Sympathectomy also increased chronic colitis in II10-/- mice. Conclusions: This study demonstrated a loss of sympathetic and an increase of SP+ nerve fibres in Crohn's disease. SEMA3C, a sympathetic nerve repellent factor, is highly expressed in the epithelium of Crohn's disease patients. In chronic experimental colitis, the sympathetic nervous system confers an anti-inflammatory influence. Thus, the loss of sympathetic nerve fibres in the chronic phase of the disease is most probably a pro-inflammatory signal, which might be related to repulsion of these fibres by SEMA3C and other repellents.
Straub, R. H.1 rainer.straub@klinik.uni-regensburg.de
Gut; Jul2008, Vol. 57 Issue 7, p911-921,