QUALITATIVE ASSESSMENT OF BRAIN MORPHOLOGY IN PANIC DISORDER

This CT study was designed to assess brain morphology in panic disorde r with and without agoraphobia. Twenty-one patients and 21 normal cont rol subjects marched for age and sex were investigated. Frontal and pa rieto-occipital cortex, temporal cortex, lateral ventricles and 3rd ve ntricle were evaluated by qualitative assessment on a 3-point scale (n ormal, questionable, abnormal). Patients showed significant bilateral enlargement of cortical cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) spaces (p<0.01). The rating ''abnormal'' was given to none (0%) of the normal controls, bu t to 7 (33.3%) of the patients. Explorative analysis showed that these abnormalities were predominantly located in prefrontal regions. No qu alitative differences were seen in the temporal cortex, lateral ventri cles or third ventricle. These findings support the hypothesis that al terations in brain morphology are involved in the etiology of panic di sorder. The lack of a correlation between CSF enlarge ment and duratio n of illness suggests that frontal CSF enlargement is a neurobiologica l Vulnerability marker in panic disorder.