Hoehn-Saric R, McLeod D R, Zimmerli W D
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore Md 21206.
Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1989 Dec;46(12):1113-9. doi: 10.1001/archpsyc.1989.01810120055009.
Generalized anxiety disorder is associated with symptoms that suggest heightened muscular tension and autonomic arousal. Since self-reports of physiological states in patients with anxiety disorder are frequently unreliable, we compared 20 female patients with generalized anxiety disorder with a matched group of nonanxious controls on a battery of psychophysiological assessments (skin conductance, heart interbeat interval, blood pressure, respiration, and forehead and gastrocnemius electromyographic activity). We found that during baseline patients with generalized anxiety disorder differed from controls on electromyographic, but not on autonomic, measures. During psychological stress tasks, patients with generalized anxiety disorder showed a weaker mean skin conductance response with a narrower range in both skin conductance and heart rate than controls. These findings suggest that sympathetic inhibition, rather than enhancement, occurs in patients with generalized anxiety disorder during performance stress.
广泛性焦虑障碍与提示肌肉紧张加剧和自主神经觉醒增强的症状相关。由于焦虑症患者对生理状态的自我报告往往不可靠，我们对20名广泛性焦虑障碍女性患者和一组匹配的非焦虑对照者进行了一系列心理生理评估（皮肤电导率、心跳间期、血压、呼吸以及前额和腓肠肌肌电活动）。我们发现，在基线期，广泛性焦虑障碍患者在肌电测量方面与对照组不同，但在自主神经测量方面没有差异。在心理应激任务期间，广泛性焦虑障碍患者的平均皮肤电导率反应较弱，皮肤电导率和心率的范围均比对照组窄。这些发现表明，广泛性焦虑障碍患者在表现应激期间发生的是交感神经抑制，而非增强。
