A note on responses of isolated guinea-pig tracheal strip preparation to electrical stimulation

Authors observed the mechanical response of the tracheal muscle to electrical stimulation using only one transverse strip preparation of isolated guinea-pig trachea, 4-5 mm in width, which included only one tracheal muscle strip. The effects of various pharmacological agents on these responses were also investigated. A biphasic response which is a contractile response followed by a relaxing response usually appeared when the preparation was stimulated with rectangular pulses (50 volt, 0.5 msec) at 40 Hz for a period of 5 sec. A monophasic contractile response also appeared, only rarely but this response was shifted to the biphasic response as the resting tonus level of the preparation gradually increased in the course of the experiment. When the preparation was stimulated electrically at intervals of 15 min, the resting tonus level of the preparation gradually decreased and it subsequently reached a stable state. Then the amplitude of contractile response and depth of relaxing response in the biphasic response evoked by electrical stimulation of constant condition were, respectively, almost constant, whenever the preparation was stimulated at intervals of 15 min. The amplitude of monophasic contractile response which appeared only rarely was relatively constant to every trial of electrical stimulation throughout the experiment. The amplitude of contractile response and depth of relaxing response in the biphasic response were 283 +/- 65 mg (mean +/- SD, n = 10) and 293 +/- 93 mg (mean +/- SD, n = 10), respectively. The monophasic contractile response was abolished by atropine (5 X 10(-7) g/ml) or tetrodotoxin (2 X 10(-7) g/ml). The contractile response in the biphasic response was abolished by atropine (5 X 10(-7) g/ml). In the presence of atropine (5 X 10(-7) g/ml), therefore, only the relaxing response appeared. This relaxing response was respectively reduced by guanethidine (1 X 10(-5) g/ml-1 X 10(-6) g/ml) and propranolol (1 X 10(-5) g/ml-1 X 10(-6) g/ml), but complete inhibition was never seen. These findings suggest that the excitatory innervation is cholinergic and the inhibitory innervation is both adrenergic and non-adrenergic. In addition, from the results of this work it is clear that the preparation used by the authors are good enough to observe the electrical stimulation-induced response of the preparation.