Learned Asthma in the Guinea Pig

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Abstract
Young male guinea pigs previously made sensitive to egg white responded to a spray of homologous antigen with a respiratory syndrome that bears a marked clinical resemblance to human bronchial asthma. A difference in susceptibility to attacks was found as well as a range of latency time in the onset of attacks in the animal population, suggesting inherent biological differences in disease reaction patterns. Four of the 6 guinea pigs who completed 13 trials and 5 out of 10 in the later study group had learned asthmatic attacks that extinguished rapidly. The role of autosensitization, generalized fear, fractional responses, and learning have been discussed. In studies in progress we are eliminating the dependence on clinical signs by measuring quantitatively airway resistance in the guinea pig. The airway resistance reflects the bronchiolar state and should indicate whether conditioned asthma is physiologically the same as experimental asthma.

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