Pituitary volume in patients with panic disorder
Serdal Özdemir2011, Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry
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Abstract
Panic patients have many functional deficiencies in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Previous studies have shown changed pituitary gland volume in some psychiatric disorders that have functional deficiencies in the HPA axis. However, to date no study has evaluated the pituitary gland volume in patients with panic disorder (PD). We investigated the pituitary gland volume in patients with PD (n = 27) and ageand sex-matched healthy controls (n = 27), using 1.5-T magnetic resonance imaging in this study. Analysis showed that patients with PD had significantly smaller pituitary volume compared to healthy subjects. Patients with agoraphobia especially had a significantly smaller pituitary volume than patients without agoraphobia. There was a significant relationship between the pituitary volume and both the severity of symptoms and the illness duration in the patient group. The results show that patients with PD have reduced pituitary volume, which may reflect the functional abnormalities seen in this disorder. These findings may help us better understand the pathology of PD.
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Regulation of the Hypothalamic–Pituitary–Adrenocortical System in Patients with Panic Disorder
Neuropsychopharmacology, 2006
Anxiety and depressive disorders are among the most common psychiatric disorders with a high number of hospital admissions and a lifetime prevalence of up to 25%. So far, the pathophysiological mechanisms for anxiety disorders remain to be found. Preclinical studies suggest that changes in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) system function are causally related to the expression of anxietyrelated behavior. The findings on HPA system function in patients with anxiety disorders are, however, heterogeneous. Both hypo-and hyperresponsiveness of HPA response in various anxiety disorders under different experimental conditions were found. In order to characterize putative case/control differences in HPA system function, we performed a Dex-CRH test, a widely used test to pick up changes in HPA system regulation with high sensitivity, in 30 patients with panic disorder, 35 patients with major depressive episode and in 30 controls individually matched for ethnicity, age and gender. The results indicate a similar dysregulation of the HPA system response in the Dex-CRH test in both patient groups. This finding further underlines the hypothesis that both, depression and panic disorder, share impaired HPA system regulation, supporting the notion that the impairment is involved in the pathophysiology of these clinical conditions. However, differences in the suppression effects and psychopathological correlation patterns between depressed and panic patients suggest different biological mechanisms of HPA system dysregulation in both disorders.
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International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice, 2020
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Dysregulation of the hypothalamicpituitaryadrenal (HPA) axis may play a role in panic disorder. HPA studies in patients with panic disorder, however, have produced inconsistent results. Seeking to understand the inconsistencies, we reexamined endocrine data from ...
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Stress-responsive neurohormonal systems are involved in major depression (MD) and panic disorder (PD). The immune system, which is closely connected with ncuronal and hormonal systems, has been studied in MD: a systemic immune activation has been recently reported. To determine whether similar changes in the immune function are present also in PD, we studied leukocyte enumeration by flow cytometry in conjunction with monoclonal antibody staining, in 18 PD, 23 MD in drug-free conditions and 20 controls. We found a significantly higher percentage of HLADR+(p<0.001) and of CD19 cells (p<O-OI) in P D and MD and a lower percentage of CD3 (p<O.O5) in PD. Urinary free cortisol levels were higher in M D compared to PD. A pattern of lymphocyte subpopulation distribution compatible with an activation of the immune system was found in M D and PD. This activation was present also with high glucocorticoid levels, suggesting a possible defect of glucocorticoid receptors.
Systemic hormonal and physiological abnormalities in anxiety disorders
Psychoneuroendocrinology, 1988
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Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências, 2005
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Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry, 2009
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