title: Role of gender in basic cough research.
abstract: Cough hypersensitivity affects mainly postmenopausal women. Pathogenesis remains unknown in their case; therefore, an optimal treatment is unavailable. Only male guinea pigs are used in basic cough research and exclusion of females leads to gender bias. Nowadays, the efforts of grant agencies aim to support projects which take gender into account and involve both sexes to reduce gender bias. The aim of our pilot study is to assess the suitability of female guinea pig model in cough research. Cough response to citric acid (0.4M) was obtained in female and male guinea pigs (n=12 each). Reproducibility of cough response was tested four times a week apart. The cough was detected from the airflow traces and cough sound analysis. Our initial results show that cough response of female guinea pigs is higher than in males. Variability of females is also higher than in males. Further investigations are necessary to validate this model in different conditions to achieve gender equality in cough studies.
authors.affiliation: Biomedical Center Martin JFM CU, Division of Neuroscience, Comenius University in Bratislava, Jessenius Faculty of Medicine in Martin (JFM CU), Slovak Republic; Department of Pathophysiology JFM CU, Comenius University in Bratislava, Jessenius Faculty of Medicine in Martin (JFM CU), Slovak Republic; Simulation Education Center JFM CU, Comenius University in Bratislava, Jessenius Faculty of Medicine in Martin (JFM CU), Slovak Republic.
authors.forename: Jana
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Plevkova
authors.affiliation: Biomedical Center Martin JFM CU, Division of Neuroscience, Comenius University in Bratislava, Jessenius Faculty of Medicine in Martin (JFM CU), Slovak Republic; Department of Pathophysiology JFM CU, Comenius University in Bratislava, Jessenius Faculty of Medicine in Martin (JFM CU), Slovak Republic. Electronic address: buday@jfmed.uniba.sk.
authors.forename: Tomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Buday
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathophysiology JFM CU, Comenius University in Bratislava, Jessenius Faculty of Medicine in Martin (JFM CU), Slovak Republic.
authors.forename: Natalia
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kavalcikova Bogdanova
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathophysiology JFM CU, Comenius University in Bratislava, Jessenius Faculty of Medicine in Martin (JFM CU), Slovak Republic.
authors.forename: Lea
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Kovacikova
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathophysiology JFM CU, Comenius University in Bratislava, Jessenius Faculty of Medicine in Martin (JFM CU), Slovak Republic.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ruzinak
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003371:Cough / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D005260:Female; D006168:Guinea Pigs; D008297:Male; D010865:Pilot Projects; D010991:Plethysmography; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012107:Research Design; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D013997:Time Factors
keywords: Basic research; Cough; Gender bias; Sex differences