Michael Lauer: It's been known for a long time that abnormalities of the autonomic nervous system are correlated with death risk, but the problem is that the way in which these abnormalities are measured are very difficult. They require sophisticated equipment and they require the kind of tests which simply have not entered the realm of normal clinical practice. What we find is that these very, very simple measures that are obtained as part of regular routine exercise testing deflect what happens to the autonomic nervous system and provides us with just as powerful predictors of risk of death.
(Dr Michael Lauer, cardiologist, Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio)
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/helthrpt/stories/s63595.htm
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
The response to injury in the perihperal nervous system
Persisting neurones switch to a ‘survivor’ phenotype and the expression of hundreds of genes8,9 is changed to compensate for the loss or diminution of target-derived neurotrophic factors,10 and in order to regrow their axons across the site of the injury and back into the periphery. Proximal changes, such as synaptic reorganisation in the cortex11–13 and spinal cord, occur upstream of axotomised first-order motor and sensory neurones, and may influence the functional outcome months or even years later.14–16 Distal to the injury, a series of molecular and cellular events, some simultaneous, others consecutive, and collectively called Wallerian degeneration, is triggered throughout the distal nerve stump and within a small reactive zone at the tip of the proximal stump (Fig. 2
).17–19
http://web.jbjs.org.uk/cgi/content/full/87-B/10/1309
).17–19http://web.jbjs.org.uk/cgi/content/full/87-B/10/1309
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