Brunet Jean-François
Institut de Biologie de l'ENS (IBENS), Inserm, CNRS, École normale supérieure,PSL Research University, Paris, France.
Elife. 2025 Mar 14;14:e104826. doi: 10.7554/eLife.104826.
Historically, the creation of the parasympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system of the vertebrates is inextricably linked to the unification of the cranial and sacral autonomic outflows. There is an intriguing disproportion between the entrenchment of the notion of a 'cranio-sacral' pathway, which informs every textbook schematic of the autonomic nervous system since the early XX century, and the wobbliness of its two roots: an anatomical detail overinterpreted by Walter Holbrook Gaskell (the 'gap' between the lumbar and sacral outflows), on which John Newport Langley grafted a piece of physiology (a supposed antagonism of these two outflows on external genitals), repeatedly questioned since, to little avail. I retrace the birth of a flawed scientific concept (the cranio-sacral outflow) and the way in which it ossified instead of dissipated. Then, I suggest that the critique of the 'cranio-sacral outflow' invites, in turn, a radical deconstruction of the very notion of a 'parasympathetic' outflow, and a more realistic description of the autonomic nervous system.
从历史角度来看，脊椎动物自主神经系统副交感神经分支的形成与颅部和骶部自主神经传出通路的整合紧密相连。自20世纪初以来，“颅骶”通路这一概念深入人心，出现在每本自主神经系统教科书的示意图中，但它的两个根源却并不稳固，这两者之间存在着一种耐人寻味的失衡。沃尔特·霍尔布鲁克·加斯克尔对一个解剖学细节过度解读（腰椎和骶部传出通路之间的“间隙”），约翰·纽波特·兰利在此基础上嫁接了一部分生理学内容（这两条传出通路对外生殖器的假定拮抗作用），此后这一观点屡遭质疑，但收效甚微。我追溯了一个有缺陷的科学概念（颅骶传出通路）的诞生过程，以及它固化而非消散的方式。然后，我认为对“颅骶传出通路”的批判反过来促使我们对“副交感神经”传出通路这一概念进行彻底解构，并对自主神经系统进行更现实的描述。
