P50, N100, and P200 Sensory Gating in Panic Disorder

Abstract

Panic disorder (PD) has been linked to abnormalities in information processing. However, only little evidence has been published for sensory gating in PD. Sensory gating describes the brain’s ability to exclude stimuli of low relevance from higher level information processing, thereby sustaining efficient cognitive processing. Deficits in sensory gating have been associated with various psychiatric conditions, most prominently schizophrenia. In this case-control event-related potential study, we tested 32 patients with PD and 39 healthy controls in a double click paradigm. Both groups were compared with regard to pre-attentive (P50), early-attentive (N100), and late-attentive (P200) sensory gating indices. Contrary to a hypothesized deficit, PD patients and healthy controls showed no differences in P50, N100 and P200 values. These results suggest that sensory gating seems to be functional across the pre-attentive, early-attentive, and late-attentive time span in this clinical population. Given this consistency across auditory sensory gating indices, further research aiming to clarify information processing deficits in PD should focus on other neurophysiological markers to investigate information processing deficits in PD (eg, P300, error-related negativity or mismatch negativity).

P50, N100, and P200 Auditory Sensory Gating Deficits in Schizophrenia Patients

“…One possible reason is the relevance of attention since many scholars have suggested that the distraction paradigm may enhance the detection of abnormal gating in patients with schizophrenia (34). Consequently, visual and auditory distractors were given in the N100/P200 trials (20,33,35,36). However, Rosburg et al suggest that the active control of attention is difficult in sensory gating experiments, since long intervals of no stimulation between the paired clicks are a necessary component of these experiments (58).…”

“…One possible reason is the relevance of attention since many scholars have suggested that the distraction paradigm may enhance the detection of abnormal gating in patients with schizophrenia ( 34 ). Consequently, visual and auditory distractors were given in the N100/P200 trials ( 20 , 33 , 35 , 36 ). However, Rosburg et al.…”

“…This deficit was also found in their first-degree relatives and individuals with ultra-high risk for schizophrenia and does not alter with clinical manifestations, so it has been regarded as an endophenotype for schizophrenia (5,16). Furthermore, the P50 sensory deficit was also found in other mental illnesses, including Alzheimer's disease, anti-social personality disorder, bipolar disorder, cocaine use disorder, panic disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, and so forth (17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24).…”

“…A second point is the acquisition of P50-N100-P200 via one paired-click paradigm collectively and clarifying their interrelationship in schizophrenia patients. Instead of schizophrenia, P50-N100-P200 has been studied in other psychiatric disorders, such as panic disorder (20), bipolar I disorder (21), antisocial personality disorder (24), cocaine users (22,23), and autism spectrum disorders (32) in recent years.…”

“…While P50 reflects the pre-attentive filtering of information processing, N100 sensory gating may be related to the filtering mechanism involved in triggering of attention, and P200 gating may be related to the filtering mechanism involved in the allocation of attention ( 8 , 9 , 32 ). Accordingly, some N100/P200 studies used auditory stimulation distractors ( 20 , 33 ), while some others used visual attention tasks ( 34 – 36 ). However, there are still some studies without distractors providing positive results( 7 , 24 , 26 , 32 ).…”