Current methodological designs of fMRI studies of panic disorder: Can data be compared?

Gisele Pereira Dias,Marcele Regine De Carvalho,Mário Cesar Do Nascimento Bevilaqua,Valfrido Leão De Melo Neto,Patricia Franca Gardino,Antonio Egidio Nardi,Anna Claudia Domingos Silveira

doi:10.3922/j.psns.2011.3.013

Gisele Pereira Dias, Marcele Regine De Carvalho + Show 5 more

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https://doi.org/10.3922/j.psns.2011.3.013

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Journal: Psychology & Neuroscience	Publication Date: Jul 1, 2011
Citations: 16	License type: cc-by

Abstract

Panic disorder (PD) is a pluridimensional condition that leads to psychological suffering. Due to advances in neuroimaging techniques, important contributions have been made in the understanding of the neurobiological basis of PD. However, because of diverging research designs and protocols, more conclusive data concerning the neurocircuitry of PD remain difficult to achieve. To address this issue, a bibliographical search was performed using the Institute for Scientific Information Web of Science and Medline/PubMed databases. Fifteen articles were found, and their research methodology including sample, comorbidity, gender, and pharmacological criteria were explored. Although current functional magnetic resonance imaging studies of PD constitute fundamental tools for health sciences, more uniform research protocols must be implemented to provide more consistent and conclusive data concerning the neural substrates of PD.

Highlights

Panic disorder (PD) is an incapacitating psychiatric condition characterized by recurrent and unexpected panic attacks (PAs), fear of new attacks and their consequences, and important behavioral alterations in an attempt to avoid new PAs (American Psychiatric Association, 2000)
Study samples Most functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies used a small number of patients in their investigation
Sample sizes need to be increased and need to be homogeneous with regard to both demographics and clinical factors. Controlling these variables may be an important step toward more direct comparisons among studies in the pursuit of identifying the neurocircuitry of PD

Summary

Introduction

Panic disorder (PD) is an incapacitating psychiatric condition characterized by recurrent and unexpected panic attacks (PAs), fear of new attacks and their consequences, and important behavioral alterations in an attempt to avoid new PAs (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). It shows real-time changes in brain functioning during noninvasive cognitive and behavioral tasks (Rocha, Alves, Garridoc, Buchpiguel, Nitrinid, & Filho, 2001), allowing researchers to identify brain regions that mediate the studied phenomena at the very moment they occur. Concerning neurobiological research on PD, much attention has been given to elucidating the so-called fear neurocircuitry, a complex neural network that involves different brain structures including deeper subcortical and brainstem structures such as the amygdala (Gorman, Kent, Sullivan, & Coplan, 2000; Massana et al, 2003a), parahippocampal gyrus (Massana et al., 2003b), midbrain, pons, and left insula (Gorman et al, 2000; Uchida et al, 2008). Functional studies allow brain functioning assessment in response to different sensorial stimuli and during cognitive and affective tasks (Amaro & Yamashita, 2001), reasons why this technique has been widely used in recent studies seeking to unravel how the brain works and what characterizes anxious responses in terms of neurobiology

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