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

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Alterations in cytokine and antibody production following chemical sympathectomy

It is becoming clear that immune responses are subject to modulation by the sympathetic nervous system. We examined the effect of chemical sympathectomy (to ablate peripheral sympathetic nerve fibers) on cytokine and Ab production in two strains of mice that are known to differ in their response to a variety of pathogens and in the dominant types of cytokines produced. C57Bl/6J mice produce a strong cell- mediated response, characterized by production of IL-2 and IFN-gamma, whereas BALB/cJ have a dominant humoral response, with production of IL- 4 and IL-10. Animals were denervated by injection with 6- hydroxydopamine and immunized with keyhole limpet hemocyanin, and spleens were removed at various times after immunization. Denervation significantly increased the keyhole-limpet-hemocyanin-stimulated in vitro proliferation and IL-2 and IL-4 production by splenocytes from both strains.
http://www.jimmunol.org/cgi/content/abstract/155/10/4613