Altered olfactory processing of stress-related body odors and artificial odors in patients with panic disorder

Publikation: Beitrag in FachzeitschriftForschungsartikelBeigetragenBegutachtung

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Patients with Panic Disorder (PD) direct their attention towards potential threat, followed by panic attacks, and increased sweat production. Onés own anxiety sweat odor influences the attentional focus, and discrimination of threat or non-threat. Since olfactory projection areas overlap with neuronal areas of a panic-specific fear network, the present study investigated the neuronal processing of odors in general and of stress-related sweat odors in particular in patients with PD.

METHODS: A sample of 13 patients with PD with/ without agoraphobia and 13 age- and gender-matched healthy controls underwent an fMRI investigation during olfactory stimulation with their stress-related sweat odors (TSST, ergometry) as well as artificial odors (peach, artificial sweat) as non-fearful non-body odors.

PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The two groups did not differ with respect to their olfactory identification ability. Independent of the kind of odor, the patients with PD showed activations in fronto-cortical areas in contrast to the healthy controls who showed activations in olfaction-related areas such as the amygdalae and the hippocampus. For artificial odors, the patients with PD showed a decreased neuronal activation of the thalamus, the posterior cingulate cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex. Under the presentation of sweat odor caused by ergometric exercise, the patients with PD showed an increased activation in the superior temporal gyrus, the supramarginal gyrus, and the cingulate cortex which was positively correlated with the severity of the psychopathology. For the sweat odor from the anxiety condition, the patients with PD showed an increased activation in the gyrus frontalis inferior, which was positively correlated with the severity of the psychopathology.

CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest altered neuronal processing of olfactory stimuli in PD. Both artificial odors and stress-related body odors activate specific parts of a fear-network which is associated with an increased severity of the psychopathology.

Details

OriginalspracheEnglisch
Aufsatznummere74655
FachzeitschriftPLoS ONE
Jahrgang8
Ausgabenummer9
PublikationsstatusVeröffentlicht - 2013
Peer-Review-StatusJa

Externe IDs

Scopus 84884549109
PubMed 24086358
PubMedCentral PMC3782473
researchoutputwizard legacy.publication#55617
researchoutputwizard legacy.publication#55527
ORCID /0000-0001-7465-8700/work/142242308

Schlagworte

Schlagwörter

  • Adult, Brain Mapping, Case-Control Studies, Ergometry, Female, Humans, Male, Odorants, Olfactory Pathways/pathology, Panic Disorder/pathology, Philosophy, Stress, Psychological/pathology, Young Adult