Prepulse inhibition deficits in patients with panic disorder
Open accessAbstract
Prepulse inhibition (PPI) is an operational measure of sensorimotor gating that is reduced in several neuropsychiatric disorders that are characterized by deficits in inhibition or gating of intrusive or irrelevant stimuli. Clinically, panic disorder (PD) patients have been described as having difficulties in inhibition of responding to sensory and cognitive events. Because such difficulties may be due to failures in early stages of information processing, we examined PPI in patients with PD. Acoustic startle reactivity, habituation, and PPI (30-, 60-, 120-, 240-, and 2,000-ms interstimulus intervals) were assessed in patients with panic disorder (m/f = 10, 10) and age- and gender-matched healthy controls (m/f = 11, 10). PD patients were assessed with structured clinical interview for DSM-IV criteria with benzodiazepine treatment as an exclusion criterion. Panic disorder patients exhibited normal startle reactivity, reduced habituation, and significantly reduced PPI in the 30-, 60-, and 240-ms prepulse conditions. Within the PD group, the patients with high trait and state anxiety exhibited less PPI than patients with low trait and state anxiety. Furthermore, in PD patients, decreased PPI correlated significantly with high trait but not state anxiety. These data indicate that early stages of sensory information processing are abnormal in patients with PD. These observed deficits in PPI could reflect a more generalized difficulty in suppressing or gating information in panic disorder. The correlation between high trait anxiety and deficient PPI supports the hypothesis that sensorimotor gating abnormalities are an enduring feature of subjects with PD.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In panic disorder, startle is larger in a threatening context but not at baseline when no stressor is present.
“startle is exaggerated in panic disorder when tested in a threatening context (Grillon et al, 1994a), but not at baseline without obvious stressors (Amrhein et al, 2005; Ludewig et al, 2002; McTeague et al, 2009).”
From Phasic vs Sustained Fear in Rats and Humans: Role of the Extended Amygdala in Fear vs Anxiety (2010) · cites this paper as Ludewig et al, 2002
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 45 · Cited by 157
Research works printed but not linked: 3
- American Psychiatric Association. 2000. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV-TR (Text Revision), 4 th edition. American Psychiatric Press. 943 p.
- Barlow DH. 1998. Anxiety and its disorder: the nature and treat- ment of anxiety and panic. New York: Guilford Press. 698 p.
- Ludewig K, Geyer MA, Etzensberger M, Vollenweider FX. 2002. Stability of the acoustic startle reflex, prepulse inhibition, and habituation in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Res (in press).
- Authors
- Ludewig, S., Ludewig, K., Geyer, M. A., Hell, D., & Vollenweider, F. X.
- Affiliations
- Psychiatrische Universitätsklinik Zürich (CH)
- University of California San Diego (US)
- Corresponding author
- Vollenweider, F.X.
- Venue
- Depression and Anxiety
- Publisher
- Hindawi Limited
- Published
- 2002
- Volume
- 15
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 55-60
- ISSN
- 1091-4269 (ISSN-L)
- 1520-6394
- OpenAlex
- W2040090469
- Cited by
- 157
- References
- 45
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 5 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 9 · 2012: 8
- FWCI
- 9.07
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Depression and Anxiety (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Figshare (cc-by)
- Funders
- EMDO Stiftung
- National Institute of Mental Health (MH42228)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Schizophrenia research and treatment
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Keywords
- prepulse inhibition, panic disorder, sensorimotor gating, acoustic startle response, startle habituation, trait anxiety, state anxiety, sensory processing, interstimulus interval
- MeSH terms
- Acoustic Stimulation, Adult, Arousal, Attention, Blinking, Electromyography, Female, Habituation, Psychophysiologic, Humans, Inhibition, Psychological, Male, Middle Aged, Psychiatric Status Rating Scales, Sensory Thresholds, Reflex, Startle, Panic Disorder
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
