Introduction to the Special Section: “Morphology, cell biology, physiology, and pathology of airway receptors”

Abstract

At the Experimental Biology 2002 meeting, held in New Orleans, the second Wiley Symposium was focused on morphological and functional aspects of distinct types of airway receptors. Sensory nerves in the lower airways are involved in the regulation of breathing patterns, modulation of airway autonomic neural tone, intrapulmonary mucosal vasodilation, the initiation of the cough reflex, and many other actions. Main players in this group of sensory nerves are the vagal afferents, to be subdivided into pulmonary C-fibers and two subgroups of myelinated afferents, i.e., the rapidly and slowly adapting pulmonary receptors. This list of presumed physiological intrapulmonary receptors has been recently extended to include complexly innervated neuroendocrine structures, the so-called neuroepithelial bodies. Not surprisingly, normal lung functioning will be drastically affected by abnormalities in some or more of these specialized sensors, which as such may directly underlie multiple airway pathologies. The continuous increase in air pollution, amongst others leading to a higher exposure to chemical irritants in the environment, has an ever increasing negative impact on this highly delicate and complex “sensing” system of the lung and accounts for the strong current interest in this field of investigation. The contributions of the various research laboratories to this special issue aim to offer an up-to-date status, both from a morphological and a physiopharmacological perspective, of the fundamental scientific research on airway receptors carried out in the different subareas.