Recording Sympathetic Nerve Activity from the Skin

Sympathetic tone is important in cardiac arrhythmogenesis; however, methods to estimate sympathetic tone are either to invasive or require proper sinus node function that may be abnormal in disease states. Because of the direct and extensive connections among various nerve structures, it is possible for the sympathetic nerves in the various structures to activate simultaneously. Therefore, we hypothesized that nerve activity can be recorded from the skin and it can be used to estimate the cardiac sympathetic tone.
Source: Trends in Cardiovascular Medicine - Category: Cardiology Authors: Source Type: research