Model experiments in vitro on asthma (In vitro experiments on buckling behavior of airway model)

摘要

Bronchial asthma causes an airway narrowing and so makes breathing difficult. It is important to clarify its mechanism. The characteristic of the airway narrowing is that its buckled cross-section consists of many folds in the airway lumen. It is considered to be caused by a rapid constriction of smooth muscle. We paid attention to a rapid change in the transmural pressure as a model of the constriction of smooth muscle. In this study, to clarify the mechanism of the buckling, we used collapsible tubes as a model of the airway and used a shock tube which gave a sudden decrease in the pressure inside the collapsible tube. The cross-sectional shape of the tube was visualized by a laser sheet method and its behavior during the buckling was photographed by using a high speed video camera. We examined the influence of thickness of a collapsible tube wall and Young's modulus of the tube on buckling behavior.