Eccrine sweat glands

Skin appendages can be distinguished into hair follicles with their associated sebaceous glands, eccrine sweat glands, apocrine sweat glands, and nails. 

Atropine suppresses thermoregulatory sweating. Sympathetic cholinergic fibers innervate eccrine sweat glands, and their muscarinic receptors are readily accessible to antimuscarinic drugs. In adults, body temperature is elevated by this effect only if large doses are administered, but in infants and children even ordinary doses may cause "atropine fever."... 

The entire surface of the human body is covered with eccrine sweat glands, with especially high concentrations in the palms of the hands, the soles of the feet, and the forehead. Eccrine sweat glands produce and release sweat to regulate the temperature of the body. 

While eccrine sweat glands use evaporation to cool the body, apocrine sweat glands use evaporation primarily to emit an odor or scent. Apocrine sweat glands produce fatty, odor-heavy liquids in the armpits and around the genital areas of humans. When sweat evaporates from these areas, the scents are carried into the air as gases. 

Eccrine sweat glands Glands that produce and release sweat to regulate the temperature of the body... 

Appendageal structures commonly found within the skin are the hairs, hair follicles, associated sebaceous glands, apocrine and eccrine sweat glands, and arrector pili muscles. Hairs are formed by epidermal invaginations. These keratinized structures traverse the dermis and may extend into the hypodermis. The free part of the hair above the surface of the skin is the hair shaft, and the part deep within the dermis is the hair root, which forms an expanded knob-like structure called the hair bulb. This is composed of a matrix of epithelial cells in different stages of differentiation. Hair is composed of three concentric epithelial cell layers the outermost thin cuticle, a densely packed keratinized cortex, and a central medulla of cuboidal cells. The hair follicle consists of four major components (1) internal root sheath (internal root sheath cuticle, granular layer, pale epithelial layer) (2) external root sheath (several layers similar to the epidermis) (3) dermal papilla (connective tissue) and (4) hair matrix (comparable to the stratum basale of the epidermis). 

Eccrine (merocrine) sweat glands are simple tubular glands that open directly onto the skin surface (Figure 35.1). In humans, they are found over the entire body surface except for the lips, external ear canal, clitoris, and labia minora. Myoepithelial cells located in the secretory portion of these glands are specialized smooth muscle cells, which, upon contraction, aid in moving the secretions toward the duct. The eccrine sweat gland duct is comprised of two layers of cuboidal epithelium... 

Balabanova, S., Schneider, E., Wepler, R., Biihler, G., Hermann, B., Boschek, H. J., Schneitler, H., and Jenzmik, H., Capacity of the eccrine sweat glands to store cocaine, Dermatol. Monatsschr., 178, 89,1992. 

Botulinum toxin is used in the treatment of excessive muscle contraction disorders (dystonias), such as strabismus, blepharospasm, focal dystonias, and spasticity. One of its uses is in the removal of facial wrinkles by paralysing mimic muscles. It can reduce sweat production by blocking cholinergic innervation of eccrine sweat glands. 

Hurley HJ. The eccrine sweat glands structure and function. In The Biology of the Skin, Parthenon Publishing, Lancaster 2001 47-76. 

Szabo G. The number of eccrine sweat glands in human skin. Adv Biol Skin 1962 3 1-5. 

However, the selectivity of this determinant has proven useful in the evaluation of some benign sudoriferous lesions. For example, although sporadic GCDFP-15 staining in encountered in a minority of eccrine sweat gland adenomas, it is consistently displayed in tumors with known apocrine differentiation." The apparent exception has been that of benign mixed tumor... 

Swanson PE, Cherwitz DL, Neumann MP, et al. Eccrine sweat gland carcinoma a histologic and immunohistochemical study of 32 cases. / Cutan Pathol. 1987 14 65-86. 

Adrenergic transmission Norepinephrine (NE) is the primary transmitter at the sympathetic postganglionic neuron-effector cell synapses in most tissues. Important exceptions include sympathetic fibers to thermoregulatory (eccrine) sweat glands and probably vasodilator sympathetic fibers in skeletal muscle, which release ACh. Dopamine is an important vasodilator transmitter in renal blood vessels. 

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