The level of skin blood flow is subject to both reflex thermoregulatory control and influences from the direct effects of warming and cooling the skin. The effects of local changes in temperature are capable of maximally vasoconstricting or vasodilating the skin. They are brought about by a combination of mechanisms involving endothelial, adrenergic, and sensory systems. Local warming initiates...

Dysregulated psychophysiological responses have been observed in patients with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS), although the results are inconsistent. Surface electromyographic (EMG), systolic and diastolic blood pressure, heart rate (HR), and skin conductance levels (SCLs) were continuously recorded at baseline, and during a series of stress and relaxation tasks in 90 FMS patients and 30 age and s...

Hypothermia produced by acute cooling prominently alters sympathetic nerve outflow. Skin sympathoexcitatory responses to skin cooling are attenuated in aged compared with young subjects, suggesting that advancing age influences sympathetic nerve responsiveness to hypothermia. However, regulation of skin sympathetic nerve discharge (SND) is only one component of the complex sympathetic nerve res...

Microneurographic measurements of muscle sympathetic nerve activity (SNA) have suggested that, during static exercise, central command is much less important than skeletal muscle afferents in causing sympathetic neural activation. The possibility remains, however, that the sympathetic discharge produced by central commandis targeted mainly to tissues other than skeletal muscle. To examine this ...

Epilepsy is a neurodegenerative disease that interrupts the normal electrical activity of the brain and promotes abnormal wiring in this organ. Epileptic seizures are often associated with significant changes in the functioning of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Autonomic signs such as flushing, sweating and piloerection often accompany partial seizures and auras. Patients with epilepsy oft...

BACKGROUND The skin is a morphologically complex organ that serves multiple complementary functions, including an important role in thermoregulation, which is mediated by a rich vasculature that is innervated by sympathetic and sensory endings. Two autosomal dominant disorders characterized by episodes of severe pain, inherited erythromelalgia (IEM) and paroxysmal extreme pain disorder (PEPD) h...

CONTEXT Cancer cachexia occurs in most patients suffering from solid malignancies. Recent works suggest paraneoplastic mechanisms. Empirical studies also found autonomic dysfunction in cancer patients, but comprehensive evaluation of the peripheral nervous system is lacking. OBJECTIVES To further understand the role of the autonomic and peripheral nervous system in cancer cachexia to guide tr...

OBJECTIVES The aims were to investigate the effects of anterior-posterior upper cervical mobilization (APUCM) on pain modulation in craniofacial and cervical regions and its influence on the sympathetic nervous system. METHODS Thirty-two patients with cervico-craniofacial pain of myofascial origin were randomly allocated into experimental or placebo groups. Each patient received 3 treatments....