The purpose of this study was two-fold: (1) to examine the relationship between the amount of airway smooth muscle and the airway responsiveness to inhaled aerosolized methacholine (MCh) in guinea pigs, and (2) to characterize the distribution of airway narrowing following MCh. / In summary: (1) the quantity of airway smooth muscle (ASM) does not appear to determine differences in maximal bronchoconstriction among normal guinea pigs; the lack of a correlation between responsiveness and amount of ASM may be explained by the heterogenous distribution of bronchoconstriction among the airways studied or the modality of challenge; (2) the sensitivity to MCh appears to be related to differences in the amount of ASM in intraparenchymal cartilaginous airways; (3) variability in the EC$ sb{50}$ may also reflect differences in airway cross-sectional area; (4) lung resistance appears to be a good measure of constriction since the morphometric measure of airway narrowing correlated well with resistance; (5) the heterogeneity of airway narrowing does not appear to be determined by differences in ASM.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.60629 |
| Date | January 1991 |
| Creators | Opazo Saez, Anabelle M. (Anabelle Marjorie) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Physiology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001244362, proquestno: AAIMM72244, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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