Autonomic Nerves

Autonomic Nerves - authored by the same team that created Cranial Nerves - provides an easy-to-follow format designed to make learning about autonomic nerves easier. Teachers, students, and practitioners will find vibrant illustrations integrated with text. Presented in two parts, the first describes the structure and function of the autonomic nerves. The second part addresses autonomic control of individual organ systems in a problem-based learning format. Throughout the text, Autonomic Nerves describes afferent pathways, integrating structures and mechanisms, efferent pathways, and the autonomic effectors. Principles of autonomic neurotransmission are also discussed.

A conspicuous portion of the peripheral nervous system is part of the 'vegetative nervous system'; it includes all the neurons which innerv ate the viscera, salivary and lacrimal glands, the heart and blood vessels, all other smooth muscles of the body, notably the intrinsic muscles of the eye and the muscles of the hair. Only part of the system belongs to the peripheral nervous system: it has also its own nuclei and pathways in the central nervous system. The distinction between visceral and somatic functions is a very old one in our culture. With the development of neurology the notion of a widespread nervous control of body functions emerged. Winslow (1732) used the term nervi sympathici majores for those nerves, which he thought to carry about 'sympathies' and then co ordinate various viscera's functions. His was an anatomical break through, which obscured Willis' 'intercostal nerve' and Vesalius 'cranial nerve'. The notion was developed among others by John stone (1764) who arrived, with the aid of some very accurate anatomical observations, at the problem of the nervous influence on motion and sensitivity of viscera. By the end of the eighteenth century, it was clear, with Bichat (1800), that what he called 'sympa thetic nervous system' (and his pupil Reil, a few years later, 'vegeta tive nervous system ') controlled visceral functions (fa vie organique), whereas somatic functions (fa vie animafe) were under direct control from the brain and spinal cord.

Aging of the Autonomic Nervous System is the first book devoted to the aging of the autonomic nervous system. The book presents the most recent findings on topics such as general aspects of the autonomic nervous system, main neurotransmitter systems, age-dependent changes of neuroeffector mechanisms in target organs, and therapeutic perspectives. It also provides a comprehensive analysis of the possible consequences of these findings. Aging of the Autonomic Nervous System will be a useful volume for gerontologists and neuroscientists.

Langley defined the autonomic nervous system as an efferent system. He divided it into the orthosympathetic and the parasympathetic.

New edition, completely rewritten, with new chapters on endovascular surgery and mitochrondrial and ion channel disorders.