Sympathetic innervation of the supraclavicular brown adipose tissue: A detailed anatomical study
Fig 5
Estimated sympathetic pathways innervating the supraclavicular fat pad.
Left panel shows the real dissection of the human right stellate ganglion. Middle panel shows the representative histology of the supraclavicular fat pad obtained from cervical surgery. Tyrosine hydroxylase stain reveals selective sympathetic innervation to the supraclavicular brown adipose tissue. The right panel shows the schematic illustration of potential pathways (1-4) innervating the supraclavicular fat pad. Those involve nerve branches from the 3rd cervical nerve (C3) (route 1), 4th cervical nerve (C4) (route 2), cervical sympathetic plexus (red arrowhead) (route 3), and the stellate ganglion (green arrowhead) along the suprascapular artery (Figs 2 and 3) (route 4). Yellow arrowheads denote communicating rami from the cervical superior cervical ganglion to the proximal segment of the C3 and C4. The direct connection between the sympathetic nerve branch running along with the suprascapular artery and the stellate ganglion itself could not be identified in our dissection. A, artery; N, nerve.