where do your sympathetic nerves emerge from in your cns
Sympathetic nervous system Sympathetic nerves arise from near the middle of the spinal cord in the intermediolateral nucleus of the lateral grey column, beginning at the first thoracic vertebra of the vertebral column and are thought to extend to the second or third lumbar vertebra. Because its cells begin in the thoracic and lumbar regions of the spinal cord, the sympathetic nervous system is said to have a thoracolumbar outflow. Axons of these nerves leave the spinal cord through the anterior root. They pass near the spinal (sensory) ganglion, where they enter the anterior rami of the spinal nerves. However, unlike somatic innervation, they quickly separate out through white rami connectors (so called from the shiny white sheaths of myelin around each axon) that connect to either the paravertebral (which lie near the vertebral column) or prevertebral (which lie near the aortic bifurcation) ganglia extending alongside the spinal column.
Acetylcholine At a schematic level, the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems are both organized in essentially the same way: preganglionic neurons in the central nervous system send projections to neurons located in autonomic ganglia; these neurons then send output projections to virtually every tissue of the body. In both branches the internal connections—the projections from the central nervous system to the autonomic ganglia—use acetylcholine as neurotransmitter, and the receptors it activates are of the nicotinic type. In the parasympathetic nervous system the output connections—the projections from ganglion neurons to tissues that don't belong to the nervous system—also release acetylcholine, acting on muscarinic receptors. In the sympathetic nervous system the output connections mainly release noradrenaline, although acetylcholine is released at a few points, such as the sudomotor innervation of the sweat glands.