Regional differentiation of sympathetic activity during peripheral heating and cooling in anesthetized rabbits

Summary Thermal stimuli applied to roughly one half of the body skin in anesthetized and paralyzed rabbits evoked antagonistic changes of regional sympathetic activity. Peripheral cooling resulted in an increase of cutaneous sympathetic activity, while visceral sympathetic activity decreased. Peripheral heating induced a decrease of cutaneous sympathetic activity and simultaneously an increase of visceral sympathetic activity. The same antagonism has been found during central nervous thermal stimulation at different levels. This identity of vasomotor patterns reveals that qualitative differentiation of regional outflow represents a typical thermoregulatory response of the sympathetic system.