Journal of Psychopharmacology

 

Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

SAGETRACK

Click here for more information

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Veltman, D. J.
Right arrow Articles by van Dyck, R.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Veltman, D. J.
Right arrow Articles by van Dyck, R.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?
Journal of Psychopharmacology, Vol. 10, No. 4, 259-265 (1996)
DOI: 10.1177/026988119601000401
© 1996 British Association for Psychopharmacology

Epinephrine and fear of bodily sensations in panic disorder and social phobia

Dirk J. Veltman

Department of Psychiatry, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Gudo van Zijderveld

Department of Psychophysiology, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Fred J H. Tilders

Department of Pharmacology, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Richard van Dyck

Department of Psychiatry, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Fear of bodily symptoms of arousal has been implicated in the pathogenesis of both spontaneously occurring and experimentally provoked panic. Fear of bodily symptoms may be characteristic for panic disorder (PD) and is hypothesized to predict state anxiety and panic frequency during experimentally induced peripheral arousal. Twenty-eight subjects, 14 with PD and 14 with social phobia (SP) were infused with placebo and epinephrine (20, 40 and 80 ng/kg bodyweight/min) according to a fixed schedule in a single blind design. Fear of bodily symptoms was higher in subjects with PD, who also reported more bodily symptoms and higher state anxiety scores during the experiment. The panic rate (five out of 14), however, was the same in both groups. Panickers did not differ from non-panickers in trait- or baseline measures except for fear of bodily symptoms, which was marginally higher in panickers. Panickers showed greater reactivity in heart rate, diastolic blood pressure and capillary PCO2. Our data do not support the hypothesis of a major role for fear of bodily symptoms in epinephrine-induced panic. Also, our results do not demonstrate a different reaction to epinephrine in PD and SP with situational panic attacks.

Key Words: epinephrine • fear of bodily sensations • panic disorder • social phobia • panic attacks


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?