Mechanical Stimulation by Postnasal Drip Evokes Cough

Cough affects all individuals at different times, and its economic burden is substantial. Despite these widespread adverse effects, cough research relies on animal models, which hampers our understanding of the fundamental cause of cough. Postnasal drip is speculated to be one of the most frequent c...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2015-11, Vol.10 (11), p.e0141823-e0141823
Main Authors: Iwata, Toshiyuki, Ito, Isao, Niimi, Akio, Ikegami, Koji, Marumo, Satoshi, Tanabe, Naoya, Nakaji, Hitoshi, Kanemitsu, Yoshihiro, Matsumoto, Hisako, Kamei, Junzo, Setou, Mitsutoshi, Mishima, Michiaki
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Air flow
Airflow
Analysis
Animal behavior
Animal models
Animals
Antitussive Agents - therapeutic use
Care and treatment
Cough
Cough - drug therapy
Cough - etiology
Cough - physiopathology
Disease Models, Animal
Drugs
Dyskinesia
Expiration
Genetic engineering
Guinea Pigs
Humans
Humidity
Inflammation - drug therapy
Inflammation - etiology
Inflammation - physiopathology
Laboratory animals
Larynx - physiopathology
Mechanical Phenomena
Mechanical stimuli
Medicine
Mice
Nasal Mucosa - physiopathology
Nose
Pharynx
Quality of life
Reflexes
Respiration
Respiratory tract
Rodents
Sneezing - physiology
Stimulation
Transgenic animals
Transgenic mice
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Cough affects all individuals at different times, and its economic burden is substantial. Despite these widespread adverse effects, cough research relies on animal models, which hampers our understanding of the fundamental cause of cough. Postnasal drip is speculated to be one of the most frequent causes of chronic cough; however, this is a matter of debate. Here we show that mechanical stimuli by postnasal drip cause chronic cough. We distinguished human cough from sneezes and expiration reflexes by airflow patterns. Cough and sneeze exhibited one-peak and two-peak patterns, respectively, in expiratory airflow, which were also confirmed by animal models of cough and sneeze. Transgenic mice with ciliary dyskinesia coughed substantially and showed postnasal drip in the pharynx; furthermore, their cough was completely inhibited by nasal airway blockade of postnasal drip. We successfully reproduced cough observed in these mice by injecting artificial postnasal drip in wild-type mice. These results demonstrated that mechanical stimulation by postnasal drip evoked cough. The findings of our study can therefore be used to develop new antitussive drugs that prevent the root cause of cough.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0141823