Experimental Study on the Effect of Stress on the Upper Respiratory Tract

为探讨应激对上呼吸道的影响，用组织化学方法检测了两种应激状态下大鼠鼻粘膜杯状细胞的活性。第一组放入应激笼中，从尾部间歇给予15V的直流电(5s，间隔30s)60min。第二组在戊巴比妥钠麻醉下头顶艾灸刺激5次。第三组为对照组，不给予任何刺激。麻醉下断头后，解剖鼻黏膜，用10%福尔马林缓冲液固定。然后用阿新蓝(PH2.5)对组织进行染色，进一步解剖距尖端6~8 mm处的上皮细胞，并将其安装在载玻片上，在光镜下观察X400。用计算机辅助图像分析仪对染色面积进行估计，通过观察EPON包埋染色标本的薄片，证明染色是杯状细胞分泌颗粒所致。因此，染色面积的百分比可以理解为反映鼻黏膜的分泌功能。结果表明，应激对上呼吸道的分泌活动有一定的影响。有趣的是，影响的方向取决于应激的种类；不舒服的应激增加了大鼠鼻粘膜杯状细胞的分泌活性，而舒适的应激则产生了相反的影响。因此，舒适的应激，如艾灸，可能有助于抵消或最大限度地减少上呼吸道不适应激的有害影响。

In order to investigate the effect of stress on the upper respiratory tract, the activity of goblet cell of the rat nasal mucosa under two kinds of stress was examined by the histochemical technique.Male Wistar rats weighing ca. 2OOg was dived into three groups. First group was put into stress cage and direct current of 15 volts was administrated from the tail intermittently (5 seconds with 30 seconds interval) for 60 min. Second group was stimulated by moxibustion at apex of the head 5 times under pentobarbital anesthesia. Third group was the control without any stimulation.After the decapitation under anesthesia the nasal mucosa was dissected and fixed by buffered 10 % formalin. The tissue was then stained with alcian-blue(PH 2.5) and the epithelium at the area between 6 and 8 mm from the tip was further dissected and mounted on the slide glass and observed under light microscope at x 400. The stained area was estimated by means of computer-aided image analyzer.The staining was shown to be due to secretory granules of the goblet cell by observing the thin sections of the Epon-embedded stained specimen. Thus the percentage of the stained area can be understood to reflect the secretory function of the nasal mucosa. The function was significantly larger in the electrically shocked rats and smaller in rats stimulated by moxibustion.From these results, it is now evident that stress does influence the secretory activity of upper respiratory tract. And interestingly, the direction of the influence depends on the kind of stress; uncomfortable stress increased the secretory activity of goblet cell of the rat nasal mucosa and comfortable stress caused the opposite effect. Therefore, comfortable stress such as moxibustion may be useful to counteract or minimize the noxious effect of umconfortable stress in the upper respiratory tract.