EFFECT OF AUTONOMIC DENERVATION ON NASAL MUCOSA: Interruption of Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Fibers

Abstract

IN ADDITION to the nerves of ordinary sensation, the mucous membranes of the nose and paranasal sinuses are innervated by both sympathetic and parasympathetic fibers. In the past several years, the department of neurosurgery at the Cleveland Clinic Hospital has been carrying out operative procedures which in some cases interrupt the sympathetic nerve supply to the head and in other cases the parasympathetic nerve supply.¹ These procedures have afforded us an opportunity of observing the effect on the nasal mucosa of sympathetic denervation on the one hand and parasympathetic denervation on the other. The parasympathetic fibers leave the brain stem as the nervus intermedius, which constitutes a portion of the facial nerve. At the geniculate ganglion some of the parasympathetic fibers leave the facial nerve to form the greater superficial petrosal nerve, which passes to the sphenopalatine ganglion; from there, postganglionic fibers go with the deep branches of the maxillary