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

Stress, norepinephrine and depression

Acta Neuropsychiatrica. 14(4):173-180, August 2002.
Leonard, Brian E.

Abstract:
Experimental and clinical evidence implicates stress as a major predisposing factor in depression and other severe psychiatric disorders. In this review, evidence is presented to show how the impact of stress on the central sympathetic system leads to changes in the endocrine, immune and neurotransmitter axes which underlie the main clinical symptoms of depression. Thus it can be shown that the noradrenergic system is dysfunctional in depression, a situation which reflects the chronic hypersecretion of glucocorticoids and inflammatory mediators within the brain in addition to an enhanced activity of the locus ceruleus. With regard to the actions of antidepressants in modulating the stress response and alleviating depression it is now evident that, irrespective of the presumed specificity of the antidepressants for the noradrenergic or serotonergic systems, they all normalize noradrenergic function. This action is due partly to the regulation of tyrosine hydroxylase activity in the locus ceruleus but also enhances neuronal sprouting which counteracts the neurodegenerative effects of chronic stress.