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carbon dioxide may deserve blame for more than just the panic over global warming. New research involving healthy people inhaling the gas indicates that the brain's response to carbon dioxide helps explain the panic attacks and other feelings of anxiety, regardless of global temperatures rising. This new insight, reported Oct. 3 in PLoS One , could help doctors prevent the development of depression and other anxiety disorders.
It has long been known that the subject anxious individuals often experience panic attacks when they breathe in carbon dioxide. Psychiatrists have theorized that emotional distress reflects an integrated response to the suffocation. The "suffocation false alarm theory" suggests that the brain has a carbon dioxide sensor and is hypersensitive in some people, which mistakenly stimulates panic attacks. Such a sensor could have evolved to alert agencies oxygen breathing of imminent death.
Eric GRIEZ experimental psychiatrist at the University of Maastricht, the Netherlands, came up with a theory test for false alarm. If valid, he assumed the healthy individuals should show some sensitivity to carbon dioxide as well. so he and his colleagues recently asked 64 volunteers to inhale the two breaths of four compressed air mixtures containing 9%, 17.5 %, 35%, or no carbon dioxide. After inhaling each mixture, volunteers continuously assessed their level of fear and discomfort on a scale of 1 to 100 using a touch screen assessing their panic with a questionnaire that listed 13 common symptoms of panic attacks. At the dose of carbon dioxide has increased, it has fear and discomfort. "Panic seems to be a very special kind of anxiety that can truly be called a suffocation alarm" said GRIEZ. Volunteers also experienced a loss of contact with reality and fear of going crazy, describing their experiences as " scary "," panic "and" scare ". GRIEZ said the results show how closely the emotions of a person are related to physical well-being." panic, which is the most dramatic form of acute anxiety is the cry for life, "he said.
The results suggest a new way to experimentally induce panic in the laboratory, which can be used to test easily and quickly new anxiolytic drugs. However, Laszlo Papp, a psychiatrist at Columbia University, wonders if the reactions described by people in good health are real panic attacks. He said that the study shows that simply increasing the concentration of inhaled carbon dioxide results in a more physical discomfort, such as breathlessness and dizziness. Papp said he has conducted studies in which anxiety-prone individuals and healthy controls inhaled carbon dioxide, and only a small proportion of the latter panicked. "The discomfort rarely translated into panic attack described by panic patients," he said.
GRIEZ, however, believes the new finding will ultimately help physicians better treat patients with emphysema and asthma. When these patients can not get enough oxygen, carbon dioxide builds up in their bodies, making them feel as if they are suffocating. They also face a higher risk of anxiety the rest of the population.
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