Some Genetic Aspects of Panic Disorder

Abstract

Panic disorder (PD) is a multifactorial disease and despite being the anxiety disorder with higher heritability, the underlying genetic basis of this disorder remains poorly elucidated. Several candidate genes have been described so far, but they generally are characterized by small sample sizes, have small effects, lack replication and translational models. Initial attempts to perform genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in PD did not lead to significant results nor were confirmed in subsequent studies. These facts serve to call attention to the PD, as other psychiatric disorders, is likely to be a multigenic and heterogeneous disease, with small-effect alleles that do not reach genome-wide significant results. Moreover, even presenting a polygenic basis, future genetic studies for PD should comprise large-scale multicenter studies under international collaboration in order to obtain representative samples. Still, the techniques of next generation sequencing – which are already dominating the field in other psychiatric disorders – aim to reveal the common and rare genetic variants associated with the PD. With a lifetime prevalence of approximately 4 % and outlined endophenotypes (i.e. carbon dioxide sensitivity), a better understanding of the genetic basis and biological mechanisms underlying PD is very important.