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

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Roles of catecholamine terminals in self-stimulation

Pharmacol Biochem Behav. 1986 Apr;24(4):1101-9.Links

Roles of catecholamine terminals and intrinsic neurons of the ventral tegmentum in self-stimulation investigated in neonatally dopamine-depleted rats.

Takeichi T, Kurumiya S, Umemoto M, Olds ME.

Three series of experiments were undertaken to determine whether the residual catecholamine (CA) terminals or intrinsic neurons of ventral tegmentum (VT) in rats given 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) after desmethylimipramine (DMI) in the lateral ventricles at birth, mediated VT self-stimulation (SS). In Experiment I, male pups were injected bilaterally on days 3 and 5 with 6-OHDA (total dose 200 micrograms) or with the vehicle after pretreatment with DMI (50 mg/kg, IP) 30 min earlier. Each subject, 150 days old, was implanted bilaterally in the VT with electrode-cannula units. Both the dopamine (DA)-depleted and control groups yielded similar percentages of self-stimulators. The rate of responding was, however, slightly but significantly lower in the DA-depleted group than in the controls.