Ege F, Kazcı O. Brachial arteries sympathetic innervation: A contribution to anatomical knowledge. World J Neurol 2023; 9(1): 1-7 [DOI: 10.5316/wjn.v9.i1.1]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Fahrettin Ege, MD, Department of Neurology, VM Medical Park Hospital Ankara, Kentkoop Kent Koop Mah 1868. Sokak No: 15 06370 Yenimahalle/Ankara, Ankara 06120, Turkey. fahrettinege@yahoo.com
Research Domain of This Article
Anatomy & Morphology
Article-Type of This Article
Observational Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Neurol. Jan 15, 2023; 9(1): 1-7 Published online Jan 15, 2023. doi: 10.5316/wjn.v9.i1.1
Brachial arteries sympathetic innervation: A contribution to anatomical knowledge
Fahrettin Ege, Omer Kazcı
Fahrettin Ege, Department of Neurology, VM Medical Park Hospital Ankara, Ankara 06120, Turkey
Omer Kazcı, Department of Radiology, VM Medical Park, Ankara 06120, Turkey
Author contributions: Ege F and Kazci Ö both contributed to the preparation of the project, obtained, analysed, and interpreted data of the study, and made a significant contribution to writing of the article.
Institutional review board statement: The studies conformed to the current version of the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocols were authorized by the Clinical Research Ethics Committee at Ankara City Hospital No. 2 (Approval No. E2-22-1307).
Informed consent statement: Informed written consent was obtained from the patients and their families for the publication of this report and any accompanying images.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors report having no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: Dataset available from the corresponding author.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE statement, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE statement.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Fahrettin Ege, MD, Department of Neurology, VM Medical Park Hospital Ankara, Kentkoop Kent Koop Mah 1868. Sokak No: 15 06370 Yenimahalle/Ankara, Ankara 06120, Turkey. fahrettinege@yahoo.com
Received: August 15, 2022 Peer-review started: August 15, 2022 First decision: October 21, 2022 Revised: November 1, 2022 Accepted: December 21, 2022 Article in press: December 21, 2022 Published online: January 15, 2023 Processing time: 149 Days and 8.4 Hours
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background
The sympathetic nervous system is primarily responsible for controlling the peripheral arteries. It decreases the size of medium and large peripheral arteries to slow the blood flow rate.
Research motivation
There is insufficient information to determine which artery receives more postganglionic sympathetic innervation from which peripheral nerve.
Research objectives
To determine if the ulnar and median nerves contribute equally to sympathetic stimulation of the brachial artery.
Research methods
We developed a neurophysiological autonomous test that measured the effects of peripheral sympathetic fibres on peripheral arteries. The brachial artery baseline diameter and flow rate were measured in the right arm of the patients. Afterwards, electrical stimulus was applied to the medial nerve for 5 s. Through electrical sympathetic activation, the vessel diameter and overall flow rate will decrease. After 7 d, a similar experiment was repeated using the ulnar nerve.
Research results
The differences in diameter and flow rate of the brachial artery in response to median and ulnar nerve activation were compared. In the total group, no significant difference in diameter was seen between medial and ulnar nerve stimulation (P = 0.648). The difference in absolute slowdown of flow rate between median nerve stimulation and ulnar nerve stimulation was not statistically significant for the entire group (P = 0.733).
Research conclusions
The brachial artery serves as a target organ and is equally innervated by the median and ulnar nerves.
Research perspectives
Expanding similar neurophysiological research to other arteries in the upper and lower limbs will contribute to advancing the field of functional neuroanatomy.
