Cell body reorganization in the spinal cord after surgery to trea sweaty palms and blushing

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

Spinal cord infarction occurring during thoraco-lumbar sympathectomy
J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 1963;26:418-421 doi:10.1136/jnnp.26.5.418

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Regional cerebral blood flow correlates with heart period and high-frequency heart period variability

 2004 Jul;41(4):521-30.

Regional cerebral blood flow correlates with heart period and high-frequency heart period variability during working-memory tasks: Implications for the cortical and subcortical regulation of cardiac autonomic activity.

Erratum in

  • Psychophysiology. 2004 Sep;41(5):807.

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to characterize the functional relationships between behaviorally evoked regional brain activation and cardiac autonomic activity in humans. Concurrent estimates of regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF; obtained by positron emission tomography), heart period, and high-frequency heart period variability (HF-HPV; an indicator of cardiac parasympathetic activity) were examined in 93 adults (aged 50-70 years) who performed a series of increasingly difficult working-memory tasks. Increased task difficulty resulted in decreased heart period (indicating cardioacceleration) and decreased HF-HPV (indicating decreased cardiac parasympathetic activity). Task-induced decreases in heart period and HF-HPV were associated with concurrent increases and decreases in rCBF to cortical and subcortical brain regions that are speculated to regulate cardiac autonomic activity during behavioral processes: the medial-prefrontal, insular, and anterior cingulate cortices, the amygdala-hippocampal complex, and the cerebellum. These findings replicate and extend a small number of functional neuroimaging studies that suggest an important role for both cortical and subcortical brain systems in human cardiac autonomic regulation.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15189475