Allison was good enough to post something from the Times.  I'm printing
it out below.  I'm sure many of you are not subscribers of the New York
times on Line.  It wasn't easy for me, some years ago, to sign on:
believe me!  But, ya know, perserverance--blah blah.---Jack

<<<Brain Scans Find Spot That Links Stress to Asthma

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
Published: September 6, 2005
Using brain scanning techniques, researchers have located a specific
part of the brain that causes people with asthma to wheeze and gasp for
breath when under emotional stress.
Their report, released on Aug. 29, will appear in the Sept. 13 issue of
The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Forum: Mental Health and Treatment
Asthma sufferers often note that anxiety and emotional turmoil make the
symptoms of an attack much worse, and in some cases, emotion alone can
precipitate an attack.
Previous research has shown, for example, that college students with
asthma have greater airway inflammation when they are exposed to an
allergen during exam week than when the exposure occurs at a less
stressful time.
Though these psychological exacerbations of asthma were well known, the
physical connection between the brain and the immune system had not been
described.
Richard J. Davidson, the senior author of the paper and a professor of
psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin, said the work
showed that when people with asthma are exposed to their allergen, "you
find certain centers in the brain that we know are intimately involved
in emotions that get activated."
In asthma attacks there are at least two phases. First, the inhalation
of an allergen provokes a release of chemicals that cause smooth muscles
to contract. A result is the tightness in the chest that many asthma
sufferers feel when an attack begins. Then, other cells are activated
that release chemicals called cytokines to fight off the invading
allergen. This causes inflammation.
Together, these reactions bring on airway obstruction and difficulty in
breathing.
In the new study, the researchers exposed six volunteers with mild
allergic asthma to two different substances, one that caused muscle
constriction, and a second that caused inflammation.
At one hour and four hours after the exposure, the participants' brains
were scanned using functional M.R.I., essentially photographing the
brain's activity during the muscle constriction stage and then at the
inflammation stage of the attack.
During the scans, the participants were asked to read words shown on a
screen. Some were emotionally neutral, like "curtains." Others, like
"lonesome," were likely to provoke negative emotions. Still other words
were specifically associated with asthma attacks, like "wheeze," "cough"
or "suffocate."
The researchers found that brain activity in the early muscle
contracting phase of the asthma attack differed from that in the later
inflammatory phase.
They also found that the presentation of words specifically associated
with asthma attacks caused increased activity in the inflammatory phase
in parts of the brain that govern emotions. This effect was not apparent
when the subjects were shown the neutral or negative words.
The authors said the study had certain limitations.
It involved a small number of subjects, and, therefore, only the
strongest brain activity was likely to be detected statistically.
And, they said, it is likely that parts of the brain other than those
examined in this study are involved in the process.
Still, they said, the data may have broader implications for the role of
the central nervous system in causing or controlling inflammation, and
the study reveals an unknown link between the brain and physiological
events in a separate part of the body.>>>

Yeah that's me.  I really feel the exacerbation from stress and exercise
now that my emphysema is doing so well for itself. !#%$$&^*+$#!