The Autonomic Nervous System

The autonomic nervous system innervates every organ in the body. An understanding of autonomic function requires expertise in many basic disciplines that are beyond practical use to clinicians. In this fourth edition of The Autonomic Nervous System Professor Appenzeller has selected basic findings of clinical relevance and put them into perspective with autonomic dysfunction. New concepts of psychoneuroendocrinology and the discovery of numerous definitive and putative neurotransmitters centrally and in the periphery have led to a reappraisal of previous views and to the increasing complexity of autonomic nervous system regulation. There has been a steady increase in the size of this volume since it was first published in 1970. This reflects in part the change from an assessment of autonomic clinical deficits largely based on anecdotal accounts to objective measurements increasingly done with noninvasive methods of measuring autonomic function. The need for the application of basic knowledge of autonomic function to the clinical aspects of active lifestyles has brought together a host of specialists working in the areas of pain, sports medicine, and behavioral abnormalities.
 
The autonomic nervous system innervates every organ in the body. An understanding of autonomic function requires expertise in many basic disciplines that are beyond practical use to clinicians. In this fourth edition of The Autonomic Nervous System Professor Appenzeller has selected basic findings of clinical relevance and put them into perspective with autonomic dysfunction. New concepts of psychoneuroendocrinology and the discovery of numerous definitive and putative neurotransmitters centrally and in the periphery have led to a reappraisal of previous views and to the increasing complexity of autonomic nervous system regulation. There has been a steady increase in the size of this volume since it was first published in 1970. This reflects in part the change from an assessment of autonomic clinical deficits largely based on anecdotal accounts to objective measurements increasingly done with noninvasive methods of measuring autonomic function. The need for the application of basic knowledge of autonomic function to the clinical aspects of active lifestyles has brought together a host of specialists working in the areas of pain, sports medicine, and behavioral abnormalities.