Does histamine stimulate trigeminal nasal afferents?

The response to histamine of nasal afferents has been studied in guinea pigs by recording the electrical activity of the whole ethmoidal nerve (EN) or that of single units. Guinea pigs were anaesthetized with urethane and breathed through a tracheostomy. Prior to intranasal instillation of histamine (1 x 10(-4)-10(-1) M), the nasal mucosa was treated with 20 microl of saline (0.9% NaCl) or HCl (pH = 2), and in some cases, H2SO4 (pH = 2). In other experiments, following HCl instillation animals were pretreated by tripelennamine (1 x 10(-2) M) and/or cimetidine (1 x 10(-2) M) in order to determine the histamine receptor type of sensory nerve endings. Whole EN activity was not stimulated even by the highest dose (1 x 10(-1) M) of histamine when the nose was pretreated with saline, but was substantially stimulated by histamine in a dose-response fashion (1 x 10(-2) M) after pretreatment with HCI or H2SO4. Pretreatment with tripelennamine and HCl prevented the effect of histamine on the afferent EN activity; but after cimetidine and HCl pretreatment histamine still had a marked stimulant effect. In the case of single unit activities, histamine with HCl pretreatment had a long-lasting stimulatory effect (110.2 +/- 26.6 sec). It is concluded that the EN in guinea pigs include histamine-sensitive fibers whose sensitivity is mediated by H1 receptors and can respond to histamine only under abnormal conditions of the nasal mucosa.