Sleep Med Psychophysiol.
2001 Jun;8(1):52-58.
Psychophysiologic Response in Patients with Panic Disorder
- Affiliations
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- 1Department of Psychiatry, Institute for Medical Sciences, and Research Institute of Clinical Medicine, Chonbuk National University Medical School, Chonju, Korea.
Abstract
OBJECTIVES
An increased level of psycophsiologic arousal and diminished physiologic flexibility would be observed in patients with panic disorder compared with a normal control group. We investigated the differences of psychophysiologic response between patients with panic disorder and normal control to examine this hypothesis.
METHODS
Ten Korean patients with panic disorder who met the diagnostic criteria of DSM-IV were compared with 10 normal healthy subjects. In psychological assessment, levels of anxiety and depression were evaluated by State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Beck's Depression Inventory and Hamilton Rating Scale For Anxiety and Depression. Heart rate, respiration rate, electrodermal response, and electromyographic activity were measured by biofeedback system ( J & J I-330 model) to determine psychophysiologic responses on autonomic nervous system. Stressful tasks included mental arithmetic, video game, hyperventilation, and talking about a stressful event. Psycophysiologic responses were measured according to the following procedures ; baseline (3 min)-mental arithmetic (3 min)- rest (3 min)-video game (3 min)-rest (3 min)-hyperventilation (3 min)-rest (3 min)-talking about a stressful event (3 min).
RESULTS
The baseline level of anxiety and depression, electrodermal response (p=.017), electromyographic activity (p=.047) and heart rate (p=.049) of patients with panic disorder were significantly higher than those of the normal subject group. In electrodermal response, patient group had significantly higher startle response than the control group during hyperventilation (p=.001). Startle and recovery responses of heart rate in the patient group were significantly lower than responses in the control group during mental arithmetic (p=.007, p=.002). In electrodermal response of the patient group, startle response was significantly higher than recovery response during mental arithmetic (p=.000) and video game task (p=.021). Recovery response was significantly higher than startle response in respiratory response during hyperventilation.
CONCLUSION
The results showed that patients with panic disorder had higher autonomic arousal than the control group, but the physiologic flexibility was variable. We suggest that it is helpful for treatment of panic disorder to decrease the level of autonomic arousal and to recover the physiologic flexibility in certain stressful event.
