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, April 20, 2008

Effects of antidepressants on cytokine production and actions

There are intriguing analogies between many features of depression and physiological and behavioral responses to infection, which are mediated by the brain effects of cytokines. These observations suggest that depression can be considered as a psychoneuroimmunological disorder where a central increase of pro-inflammatory cytokines, may have adverse consequences on the functional activity of the neurochemical and neuroendocrine systems implicated in the symptoms of the disorder. According to this hypothesis, the therapeutic effects of antidepressants should be at least partly exerted by attenuating the brain expression and/or actions of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Despite their inherent limitations, animal models of depression that are based on behavioral and pharmacological analogies with the symptoms observed in humans, represent the best available tool to test this hypothesis and to investigate the action mechanisms of the immune effects of antidepressants. Treatment with different classes of antidepressants indeed conferred protection against cytokine-induced depressive-like biological and behavioral changes. This ‘anti-inflammatory’ profile may be due to alterations of the pro-/anti-inflammatory cytokine balance. The mechanisms underlying these effects of antidepressants are presently unknown, but the available literature suggests several possibilities, including actions on different molecules representing potential mediators of mood disorders induced by cytokines. The studies summarized in this review have opened up new vistas in both the pathophysiology of depression and the pharmacology of antidepressants. Whether their demonstrated immune effects are a side effect or a significant part of their clinical activity still remains to be elucidated.

Nathalie CastanonCorresponding Author Contact Information, E-mail The Corresponding Author, a, Brian E. Leonardb, Pierre J. Neveua and Raz Yirmiyac

a INRA-INSERM U394, Neurobiologie Integrative, Institut François Magendie, Rue Camille Saint-Saëns, Bordeaux Cedex 33077, France

b Pharmacology Department, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland

c Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel


Received 9 July 2001.
Available online 1 October 2002.