Nonresponders among hyperhidrotics

In the context of our investigation on palmar sweating and hyperhidrosis we subjected 40 individuals (20 hyperhidrotic and 20 normal) to noise stimulation. The participants received ten startling auditory tones (square pulse of 400 ms duration, 1000 Hz frequency and 105-dB intensity) at random intervals varying from 15-55 s. Hyperhidrotic subjects, relative to controls, responded with greater amplitude and habituated later, but a subset of these subjects failed to respond at all to the tone. In this report, we focus on the finding that some hyperhidrotics were nonresponders. We discuss the consequences of this finding, both its implication for understanding hyperhidrosis and nonresponsiveness, as well as the complexity of sympathetic nervous system activation.