Each spinal nerve

Spinal nerve

The term spinal nerve generally refers to a mixed spinal nerve, which carries motor, sensory, and autonomic signals between the spinal cord and the body...

 receives a branch, gray ramus communicans, from the adjacent ganglion

Ganglion

In anatomy, a ganglion is a biological tissue mass, most commonly a mass of nerve cell bodies. Cells found in a ganglion are called ganglion cells, though this term is also sometimes used to refer specifically to retinal ganglion cells....

 of the sympathetic trunk

Sympathetic trunk

The sympathetic trunks are a paired bundle of nerve fibers that run from the base of the skull to the coccyx.-Structure:...

.

They contain unmyelinated postganglionic sympathetic

Sympathetic nervous system

The sympathetic nervous system is one of the three parts of the autonomic nervous system, along with the enteric and parasympathetic systems. Its general action is to mobilize the body's nervous system fight-or-flight response...

fibers.

Function

After signals are carried from the spinal cord to the ganglion through the ventral ramus, they synapse in the ganglion, and then post-ganglionic fibres carry them to the organs that they innervate. But if the response is the whole body response, as in sympathetic fight or flight, the signals are distributed to other spinal nerves by way of gray rami which serve as bridges between the spinal nerves.

External links

- "Autonomic Connections of the Spinal Cord"

• Overview and diagram