The inner and external cervical nerves on the right and left sides leave the upper cervical ganglia and contain postganglionic nerve fibers.
The internal sympathetic carotid nerve connects to the internal carotid artery and follows it and its branches to its various target areas, including the pupil dilator muscle of the eye, the smooth eyelid lift muscle (m. tarsalis superior), smooth muscle that in the eye socket runs between the eye globe and the bone wall of the eye socket and which pulls the eye globe forward, glands in the nasal cavity and oral cavity and not forgetting the vasomotor threads to the smooth muscle of the blood vessel walls. Compare with Horner's syndrome!
The external sympathetic carotid nerves connect to the external carotid artery (a. carotid externa) and follow it and its branches to their various target areas, including the larger saliva-producing glands.