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Premature termination of the sympathetic chain
Affiliations- Department of Anatomy, Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, Erie, PA, United States
- Henry Ford Macomb Hospital, Department of Otolaryngology - Facial Plastic Surgery
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Abstract
The sympathetic chain serves to distribute visceral efferents and afferents over the entire body. The sympathetic chain courses from the base of the skull to the coccyx and sends branches to distribute along spinal nerves and a number of visceral nerves that distribute to cardiac muscle, smooth muscle and glands. During dissection of the posterior abdominal wall, we identified a rare variation of the sympathetic chain. In this subject, the sympathetic chain failed to send gray rami to the L2-4 spinal nerves and terminated by joining the S1 anterior ramus. Such a variation has only been reported once in the literature in 1895. We provide both schematic and photographic documentation of this variation and propose a number of possible circuits whereby visceral axons can reach their target despite these anatomical barriers.
Abstract
The sympathetic chain serves to distribute visceral efferents and afferents over the entire body. The sympathetic chain courses from the base of the skull to the coccyx and sends branches to distribute along spinal nerves and a number of visceral nerves that distribute to cardiac muscle, smooth muscle and glands. During dissection of the posterior abdominal wall, we identified a rare variation of the sympathetic chain. In this subject, the sympathetic chain failed to send gray rami to the L2-4 spinal nerves and terminated by joining the S1 anterior ramus. Such a variation has only been reported once in the literature in 1895. We provide both schematic and photographic documentation of this variation and propose a number of possible circuits whereby visceral axons can reach their target despite these anatomical barriers.
Keywords
anatomy, neuroscience, neuroanatomy, human body
About this articleTitle
Premature termination of the sympathetic chain
Journal
Issue
Article type
Case report
Published online
2021-09-15
Page views
388
Article views/downloads
175
DOI
10.5603/FM.a2021.0089
Pubmed
Keywords
anatomy
neuroscience
neuroanatomy
human body
Authors
Y. Mansour
R. J. Kulesza
