sympathetic nervous system
one of two divisions of the autonomic nervous system, along with the parasympathetic nervous system
AI overview
The sympathetic nervous system is one of two major systems that automatically controls your body's basic functions, working alongside the parasympathetic nervous system. It matters because it prepares your body to respond to challenges or threats—for example, by increasing your heart rate and redirecting blood flow during stressful situations.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Key facts
- Latin
- pars sympathica divisionis autonomici systematis nervosi
- Acronym
- SNS or SANS
- Mesh
- D013564
- Ta98
- A14.3.01.001
via Wikipedia infobox
Research
89,749 papers- The sympathetic nervous system in development and disease.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2021
- Sympathetic Nervous System Activation and Vascular Endothelial Function With Chronic Hypoxia.Circulation research · 2020
- Sympathetic nervous system: evaluation and importance for clinical general anesthesia.Anesthesiology · 2008
- The sympathetic nervous system as a target for the treatment of hypertension and cardiometabolic diseases.Journal of cardiovascular pharmacology · 2014
Article
The sympathetic nervous system (SNS; or sympathetic autonomic nervous system, SANS, to differentiate it from the somatic nervous system) is one of the three divisions of the autonomic nervous system, the others being the parasympathetic nervous system and the enteric nervous system. The enteric nervous system is sometimes considered part of the autonomic nervous system, and sometimes considered an independent system.
The autonomic nervous system functions to regulate the body's unconscious actions. The sympathetic nervous system's primary process is to stimulate the body's fight or flight response. It is, however, constantly active at a basic level to maintain homeostasis. The sympathetic nervous system is described as being antagonistic to the parasympathetic nervous system. The latter stimulates the body to "feed and breed" and to (then) "rest-and-digest".