[The relation between sympathetically maintained pain, regional vasomotor disturbances and sympathetic nerve activity: a remaining enigma].
In simultaneous bilateral nerve recordings, patients with Sympathetically Maintained Pain (SMP) affecting one limb show similar sympathetic traffic in nerves supplying the affected and unaffected limb, also when the painful limb shows a marked regional autonomic (vasomotor) dysfunction. These findings argue against the notion that SMP must be mediated by a reflex change in the pattern of sympathetic discharge. In general, they underline the fact that autonomic effector disturbances may give little information about underlying nerve traffic.
Elam
M
M
Department of Neurophysiology, Institute of Clinical Neuroscience, Sahlgren University Hospital, Göteborg.