Journal
JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSIOLOGY
Volume 104, Issue 1, Pages 253-261Publisher
AMER PHYSIOLOGICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1152/japplphysiol.00737.2007
Keywords
specific airway resistance; mice; tidal volume; breathing frequency; bronchoconstriction
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Funding
- NATIONAL CENTER FOR RESEARCH RESOURCES [P20RR015557] Funding Source: NIH RePORTER
- NATIONAL HEART, LUNG, AND BLOOD INSTITUTE [R43HL062743] Funding Source: NIH RePORTER
- NCRR NIH HHS [P20-RR-15557] Funding Source: Medline
- NHLBI NIH HHS [R01-HL-62743] Funding Source: Medline
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The assessment of lung mechanical function in small animals, particularly mice, is essential for investigations into the pathophysiology of pulmonary disease. The most accurate and specific methods for making this assessment are highly invasive and so provide data of questionable relevance to normality. By contrast, present noninvasive methods based on unrestrained plethysmography have no direct link to the mechanical properties of the lung. There is thus a need for a completely noninvasive method for determining lung mechanical function in small animals. In the present study, we demonstrate an extension of unrestrained plethysmography in which changes in lung volume are estimated via orthogonal video imaging of the thorax. These estimates are combined with the pressure swings recorded as mice breathe inside a heated and humidified chamber to yield an estimate of specific airway resistance (sRaw). We used this new technique, which we term unrestrained video-assisted plethysmography (UVAP), to measure sRaw in 11 BALB/c mice exposed to aerosols of saline, methacholine, and albuterol and obtained mean values of 0.71, 1.23 and 1.10 cmH(2)O center dot s, respectively. Mean breathing frequency was 4.3, 3.4, and 3.6 breaths/s, respectively, while the corresponding mean tidal volumes were 0.36, 0.44 and 0.37 ml, respectively. We conclude that UVAP, a noninvasive method, is able to provide usefully accurate estimates of sRaw and breathing pattern parameters in mice.
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