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The autonomic nervous system is responsible for regulating the body's unconscious actions. The parasympathetic system is responsible for stimulation of "rest-and-digest" or "feed-and-breed" [ 3 ] activities that occur when the body is at rest, especially after eating, including sexual arousal , salivation , lacrimation (tears), urination ...
Motor neurons of the autonomic nervous system are found in "autonomic ganglia". Those of the parasympathetic branch are located close to the target organ whilst the ganglia of the sympathetic branch are located close to the spinal cord. The sympathetic ganglia here, are found in two chains: the pre-vertebral and pre-aortic chains.
Parasympathetic ganglia are the autonomic ganglia of the parasympathetic nervous system. Most are small terminal ganglia or intramural ganglia, so named because they lie near or within (respectively) the organs they innervate. The exceptions are the four paired parasympathetic ganglia of the head and neck.
The PNS includes motor neurons, mediating voluntary movement; the autonomic nervous system, comprising the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system and regulating involuntary functions; and the enteric nervous system, a semi-independent part of the nervous system whose function is to control the gastrointestinal system.
An autonomic ganglion is a cluster of nerve cell bodies (a ganglion) in the autonomic nervous system. The two types are the sympathetic ganglion and the parasympathetic ganglion . [ 1 ] [ 2 ]
In the autonomic nervous system, there are both sympathetic and parasympathetic ganglia which contain the cell bodies of postganglionic sympathetic and parasympathetic neurons respectively. A pseudoganglion looks like a ganglion, but only has nerve fibers and has no nerve cell bodies.
There is a lesser known division of the autonomic nervous system known as the enteric nervous system. [9] Located only around the digestive tract, this system allows for local control without input from the sympathetic or the parasympathetic branches, though it can still receive and respond to signals from the rest of the body. [9]
The division of the autonomic nervous system into sympathetic and parasympathetic pathways is particularly useful from a medical treatment perspective [source]. Jänig et al. warn that changing the classifications of the systems could result in confusion on how to treat some disease, particularly those of the gut and stomach region. [9]