[Inhibitory control deficit in patients with panic disorder: an event-related potentials study].

Objective To investigate the electrophysiological evidence of inhibitory control deficit in panic disorder patients using a visual simple Go/Nogo task. Methods Sixteen patients with panic disorder and 13 healthy volunteers received a visual simple Go/Nogo task. The stimuli were single or double English letters and appeared with equal probability. The subjects were instructed to press a button as quickly as possible when the double letter was presented (I. E. , GO), but make no response to the single letter (I. E. ,Nogo). 32 channel EEG data were recorded. Result All subjects displayed a distinct Go/Nogo effect in the N2 component (PD group: F1,30= 8.00, P = 0.008 ; NC group: F1,24 = 4.60, P = 0.042) and P3 component (PD group:F1,30 = 7.85,P =0.009; NC group:F1,24 = 13.57,P =0.000) at frontocentral sites, but the amplitudes of Nogo-N2 and Nogo-P3 were significantly reduced in panic disorder patients as compared to the healthy subjects (Fz: F = 9.135, P = 0.005 ; F = 8.511, P = 0.006, respectively). There was no significant differences between the latencies of Nogo-N2 and Nogo-P3. Conclusion Panic disorder may consist inhibitory control deficit which may assist in of fering new objective evidence to understand the etiology of panic disorder. Key words: Panic disorder;  Inhibit;  Event-related potential