The goal of this study was to determine whether Sendai (parainfluenza type I) virus infection potentiates neurogenic inflammatory responses in the trachea. Pathogen-free F344 male rats were inoculated into each nostril with Sendai virus or with sterile culture medium. Six days after the inoculation, a threshold dose of capsaicin (75 micrograms/kg) or the vehicle used to dissolve the capsaicin was injected intravenously, and Monastral blue pigment was injected to measure the increase in vascular permeability produced by the capsaicin or vehicle (n = 6 per group). Five minutes later the tracheae were fixed by vascular perfusion, removed, and treated with a histochemical reaction for myeloperoxidase to stain the neutrophils in the mucosa, and the magnitude of the Monastral blue extravasation was determined both by stereological point counting and by microspectrophotometry. Capsaicin produced a larger number of Monastral blue-labeled blood vessels in the rats infected with Sendai virus than in the uninfected rats or in any of the rats that received only the vehicle. In addition, capsaicin further increased the already large number of neutrophils in the tracheal mucosa of the infected rats. However, in the dose used, it had no detectable effect on neutrophils in the uninfected rats. We conclude that Sendai virus infection causes neutrophil chemotaxis but does not increase vascular permeability in the trachea; it does, however, make the trachea abnormally susceptible to neurogenic inflammation, as manifested by an unusually large increase in vascular permeability and an exaggerated influx of neutrophils in response to sensory nerve stimulation by capsaicin.