Psychosomatic Medicine 36:206-214 (1974)
© 1974 American Psychosomatic Society

Salivary Flow as Measures of Parasympathetic Nervous System Involvement in Children's Asthma

¹ Behavior Science Division, Children's Asthma Research Institute and Hospital Denver, Colorado

Address for reprint requests: D.R. Miklich, CARIH, 3401 W. 19th Ave., Denver, Colorado 80204

The theory that asthma is due to an overactive parasympathetic has failed of support in direct tests primarily because asthmatics' cardiovascular variables are increased in the sympathetic direction. This increase could be due to the asthma itself or the drugs given for it. Therefore, a direct test was made by comparing asthmatics' and normals' salivation rates, a measure which should not be affected by asthma nor its therapy. No differences were found. These results suggested an alternative way to resolve contradictions in the literature: Increase parasympathetic activity in an asthmatic will exacerbate his asthma. A second study tested this by correlating salivation and heart rates with pulmonary flow rates measured on several different days in each of nine asthmatic children, and by correlating the mean pulmonary flow rates and asthma severity across all subjects. The intraindividual correlations did not support the hypothesis. However, the interindividual test suggested that greater parasympathetic activity was significantly correlated with more severe asthma.

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