We assessed the adrenaline response because the activation of the autonomic nervous system is mechanistically linked to the inflammatory response: adrenaline can independently increase IL-6 concentration (Steensberg et al. 2001), and acute increases in IL-6 plasma concentration are blunted in cervical spinal cord injury, a condition accompanied with autonomic dysfunction (Paulson et al. 2013). This evidence concerns the gene IL6 and Abnormal autonomic nervous system physiology.