Sympathetic control of cutaneous blood flow and blood pressure in human spinal cord injury

Funding Activity

Website
http://purl.org/au-research/grants/nhmrc/400961

Funding Status
Closed

Does something not look right? The information on this page has been harvested from data sources that may not be up to date. We continue to work with information providers to improve coverage and quality. To report an issue, use the .

Funded Activity Summary

While spinal cord injury can cause devastating changes in the nervous system paralysis and loss of sensation relatively little is known about changes to the sympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system is intimately involved in the ongoing control of blood pressure, blood flow and temperature control. Loss of sympathetic control can occur following spinal cord injury. Interruption of descending pathways can result in partial or complete loss of sympathetic outflow from the thoracolumbar segments. Complete decentralization can result in autonomic dysreflexia (autonomic hyperreflexia), in which sensory stimuli originating below the lesion evoke a reflex increase in sympathetic drive to the blood vessels, causing them to constrict. Because of this, blood pressure may rise suddenly and remain at such high levels that stroke and (occassionally) cardiac arrest may occur. This phenomenon, autonomic dysreflexia, is considered a medical emergency. The typical subjective signs of autonomic dysreflexia include a throbbing headache, tingling in the head or nasal congestion; sweating and flushing above the lesion are clinical signs that prompt medical staff to measure blood pressure and to locate the source of sensory irritation (usually a distended bladder or impacted colon, sometimes a pressure sore or ingrown toenail). Commonly, however, subclinical episodes go undetected, and this phenomenon of silent dysreflexia is of increasing concern. This project will develop means of assessing the integrity and state of the sympathetic nervous system below a lesion in patients with spinal cord injury and characterize the firing properties of reflexly activated sympathetic neurones.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-01-2006

End Date: 01-01-2008

Funding Scheme: NHMRC Project Grants

Funding Amount: $242,002.00

Funder: National Health and Medical Research Council

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

Autonomic Nervous System

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

There are no SEO codes available for this funding activity

Other Keywords

autonomic dysreflexia | blood pressure control | human | skin blood flow | spinal injury | stroke

Related Links