Physiological studies of canine sympathetic ganglia and cardiac nerves.

Anatomical studies have indicated that the middle cervical ganglion is the primary locus of sympathetic postganglionic neurons which have axons projecting in canine cardiac nerves. Small regions of thoracic sympathetic ganglia were stimulated electrically with bipolar electrodes and the generated compound action potentials were recorded from ipsilateral cardiac nerves. Several procedures were used to distinguish the effects of stimulating preganglionic axons, ganglionic sites and postganglionic axons. Following hexamethonium it was found that only low frequency stimulation (e.g. 1 Hz) of ganglionic sites resulted in the generation of compound action potentials in cardiac nerves. These ganglionic sites were located throughout the middle cervical ganglion, but only in the cranial medial pole of the stellate ganglion. Stimulation of a single locus in a stellate or middle cervical ganglion generated compound action potentials in all major ipsilateral sympathetic cardiac nerves. A ganglion was also identified at the junction of the thoracic vagus and the cranial vagal nerve which may be as important as the right stellate ganglion in cardiac regulation. These results demonstrate that there are discrete loci in thoracic ganglia which contain neurons projecting in several ipsilateral cardiac nerves. Low frequency stimulation of these loci was found to be optimal for generation of compound action potentials.