Respiratory sensory gating measured by respiratory-related evoked potentials in generalized anxiety disorder

Pei-Ying S Chan; Chia-Hsiung Cheng; Shih-Chieh Hsu; Chia-Yih Liu; Paul W Davenport; Andreas von Leupoldt

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00957

Respiratory sensory gating measured by respiratory-related evoked potentials in generalized anxiety disorder

Front Psychol. 2015 Jul 9:6:957. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00957. eCollection 2015.

Authors

Pei-Ying S Chan¹, Chia-Hsiung Cheng¹, Shih-Chieh Hsu², Chia-Yih Liu³, Paul W Davenport⁴, Andreas von Leupoldt⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Occupational Therapy, College of Medicine, Chang Gung University , Taoyuan, Taiwan ; Healthy Ageing Research Center, Chang Gung University , Taoyuan, Taiwan.
² Department of Psychiatry, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital , Taoyuan, Taiwan ; Department of Medicine, Chang Gung University , Taoyuan, Taiwan.
³ Department of Psychiatry, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital , Taoyuan, Taiwan ; Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chang Gung University , Taoyuan, Taiwan.
⁴ Department of Physiological Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Florida , Gainesville, FL, USA.
⁵ Research Group on Health Psychology, University of Leuven , Leuven, Belgium ; Department of Systems Neuroscience, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf , Hamburg, Germany.

Abstract

The perception of respiratory sensations plays an important role both in respiratory diseases and in anxiety disorders. However, little is known about the neural processes underlying respiratory sensory perception, especially in patient groups. Therefore, the present study examined whether patients with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) would demonstrate altered respiratory sensory gating compared to a healthy control group. Respiratory-related evoked potentials (RREP) were measured in a paired inspiratory occlusion paradigm presenting two brief occlusion stimuli (S1 and S2) within one inspiration. The results showed a significantly greater S2/S1 ratio for the N1 component of the RREP in the GAD group compared to the control group. Our findings suggest altered respiratory sensory processing in patients with GAD, which might contribute to altered perception of respiratory sensations in these patients.

Keywords: generalized anxiety disorder; respiratory sensation; respiratory sensory gating; respiratory-related evoked potentials.