The relationship between anxiety and the level of peripheral vasomotor activity

Ackner, Brian

doi:10.1016/0022-3999(56)90033-2

Cited by 41 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Pre vious studies comparing anxious patients with normal controls have obtained similar results for measures of peripheral blood flow [13,14], heart rate [8,15,16] and skin con ductance [16,17]. Thus, anxious patients are distinguished from normal controls by higher levels of sympathetically mediated physio logical activity.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 50%

Psychophysiological Factors in Panic Disorder

et al. 1984

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Panic disorder patients were compared with normal subjects during intravenous infusion of sodium lactate, isoproterenol, and placebo. Panic attacks meeting the criteria of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, vol. 3 [American Psychiatric Association, 1980] occurred during all three conditions in patients and during the lactate and isoproterenol infusions in normals. Patients had significantly higher average levels of skin conductance, heart rate and state anxiety, and significantly lower finger temperatures compared to normal subjects. However, no measure reliably differentiated panic attacks from nonattack periods. It is concluded that the peripheral physiologic responses investigated are neither necessary nor sufficient for the occurrence of panic attacks. It is possible that reports of these attacks represent phobic responses to intense anxiety.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 50%

Psychophysiological Factors in Panic Disorder

et al. 1984

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“…However, at such temperatures vascular emotive responses may nevertheless be obtained. Ackner (1960) showed by plethysmographic methods that constriction of skin digital vessels occurred at times of stress, and Tjossem, Lerder, Dersher, Holmes & Ripley (1959) deduced a similar vascular reaction from measurements of skin temperature in the skin of children subjected to stress. The problem outstanding is to understand how the sweat mechanism could be involved at a time when no activity is 464 D.W.KENNARD EMOTI VE SWEATING apparent.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

The nervous regulation of the sweating apparatus of the human skin, and emotive sweating in thermal sweating areas

Kennard¹

1963

The Journal of Physiology

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Observations on the neural regulation of the human sweat apparatus may help to clarify two outstanding problems concerning the functioning of the skin. It has been known since the work of Kuno andhis school (1956) that the emotive type of sweating is confined to specific area-s of the skin, palms, soles, axillae and limited parts of the face. These commence sweating possibly within a second after the application of a stimulus, such as mental arithmetic, discussion of an embarrassing topic, or physical exercise. Other areas of the skin surface do not show any trace of sweating in response to such stimuli at normal ambient temperatures up to 260 C, or higher, in most individuals. The responses to thermal stimuli, however, show a converse relationship. The general body surface responds primarily to thermal stimulation. When the ambient temperature around the subject is raised at a certain point there is a sudden onset of sweating. The emotive sweating areas, palm and sole, commence sweating later, and at a higher temperature than the other parts of the body.The sweat response of the emotive areas is accompanied by skin electrical changes, extensively used in psychological studies as a measure of arousal activity, though the exact nature of the physical relation between sweating and these electrical events has not yet been clarified. At high ambient temperatures, e.g. above 30°C, emotively induced sweating is seen on the general body surface (Kuno, 1956). The observations to be described here provide information about the nature of the mechanism causing this change in the sweating behaviour of the body surface.The work of Fox & Hilton (1958) on the control of blood flow to the skin has demonstrated the importance of the sweat mechanism in vasodilatation. These experiments showed that an enzyme appeared to be released in the sweat itself, causing the formation of bradykinin in the skin, which then brought about vascular dilatation by direct action. However, it was noted by Fox & Hilton (1958) that there was a small discrepancy between the incidence of vasodilatation and sweating. Vascular dilatation occurred

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“…It could be argued that the conditions of the experiment caused emotional vasoconstriction and thus prevented the normal reflex vasodilatation in the hand (Ackner, 1956). Neither patients nor controls had special preparation and they were not used to the procedure.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%