Project Summary

Srinivasan S. Pillay, M.D. (Young Investigator 2002) of McLean Hospital, will seek to identify the underlying neurobiological processes which accompany panic attacks in patients diagnosed with panic disorder.  Dr. Pillay will compare the patterns of cortical blood flow in patients with panic disorder to non-psychiatric control subjects during tasks of attention and emotional discrimination.  Cortical areas associated with attention and the detection of fear, specifically the anterior cingulated and the amygdala will be the regions of interest.  He hypothesizes that individuals with panic disorder will demonstrate decreased activation within the anterior cingulate during attentionally-based tasks as compared to control subjects, and expects that the anticipation of fear and the discrimination of fearful affect will result in an increase in amygdalar activation patients with panic disorder.  Findings generated from this project will help to clarify the neurobiological systems underlying panic disorder, and identify anomalous brain functions associated with anxiety traits which are uniquely present in these patients which may predispose them to panic attacks. 

Program Area: ANXIETY DISORDERS\Panic Disorder

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