Effects of spinal cord injury on synaptic inputs to sympathetic preganglionic neurons
Section snippets
Location and morphology of sympathetic preganglionic neurons
Sympathetic preganglionic neurons are small- to medium-sized cholinergic neurons and their cell bodies are located in the thoracic and upper lumbar spinal cord in four distinct subnuclei within the lateral horn (Cabot, 1990). The majority of sympathetic preganglionic somata occur in the intermediolateral cell column, which lies at the border between the grey and white matter of the spinal cord. In the intermediolateral cell column, the cell bodies of sympathetic preganglionic neurons are
Innervation of sympathetic preganglionic neurons in intact and injured cord
In intact cord, sympathetic preganglionic neurons are innervated by both supraspinal and intraspinal neurons. Virus tracing studies have been particularly useful for revealing the locations of presympathetic neurons, i.e., those that are directly antecedent to sympathetic preganglionic neurons and are likely to be involved in regulating their activity. Supraspinal inputs to sympathetic preganglionic neurons come from five main brain regions, including the rostral ventrolateral medulla, the
Rostrocaudal differences in sympathetic preganglionic neurons and their innervation
The sympathetic nervous system was originally thought to act in an undifferentiated way to allow an animal to respond appropriately to life-threatening situations. However, over the past two decades, it has become increasingly clear that central control of sympathetic outflow is differential, permitting specific functional groups of sympathetic preganglionic neurons to respond in different ways to the same homeostatic challenge (reviewed by Morrison, 2001). Differences in the spatial
Acknowledgments
Project Grants (#229907 to ILS and #000044 to JRK) and Research Fellowships (#229921 to ILS and #358709 to JRK) from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, grants from the National Heart Foundation of Australia (#G98A0097 and #G00A0512 to ILS), a Visiting Scientist Award from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada (ILS), Ontario Heart and Stroke Foundation (LCW) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (LCW) supported this work. Carolyn Martin, Natalie Fenwick
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