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

Monday, August 16, 2010

depletion of brain noradrenaline levels caueses a disturbance in cerebral microvasculatur tone

Chemical sympathectomy with six-hydroxydopamine leads to marked noradrenaline denervation in the nucleus ceruleus-innervated areas (Jonnson 1983) and to a decrease in noradrenaline levels measured in the cerebral cortex (Onesti et al. 1989).
Rats were subjected to chemical sympathectomy by stereotactic injection of 6-hydroxydopamine into the lateral ventricle. A hypertensive condition at a mean arterial pressure of about 160mm Hg was maintained for 1 hour by intravenous phenylephedrine. Compared with a control group CBF increased, cerebral autoregulation was impaired and specific gravity of the cerebral tissue revealed cerebral oedema. It was suggested that depletion of brain noradrenaline levels caueses a disturbance in cerebral microvasculatur tone and renders the cerebral blood vessels more vulnerable to hypertension (Kobayashi et al. 1991).

Topics in Neuroanaesthesia and Intensive Care

Experimental and Clinical Studies upon Cerebral Circulation, Metabolism and Intracranial Pressure

Cold, Georg E., Dahl, Bent L. 2002, XIV, 416 p., Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-540-41871-9