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We have proposed that panic attacks and suffocation feelings are triggered by the perception (by stereocapnesthesia) of a reduced capacity to exhale carbon dioxide (CO2). It should, therefore, be possible to stop a panic attack by lowering CO2 in the air inhaled. Stephen Cox has reported significant benefits over placebo in treating of panic disorders with a CO2-absorbing inhaler. We are now doing a larger replication. Forty consecutive patients seeking help for panic disorders from the Finnish Student Health Service will be randomly assigned to two groups given either functional inhalers or similar-looking ones that do not absorb CO2. A Finnish version of the Panic Disorder Severity Scale and a panic-VAS test of attack severity will be administered at the beginning of the study and at the end of the first and second months. Meanwhile, a laboratory study, video taping individual AA and ANA female rats, shows that increasing CO2 concentrations causes a sequence of behaviors often culminating in what appear to be panic attacks (e.g., vigorous attempts to escape from the cage). Decreasing the ambient CO2 level back toward normal stops an attack. The results suggest that this may be a useful animal model of human panic attacks and support the clinical use of inhalers. The results also indicate that CO2 does not provide a humane method of euthanasia.
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