Funding This work was supported by National Institutes of Health grant DA023209 to AM. selleck inhibitor Breeders for the ��4 nAChR subunit knockout lines were provided to our laboratory with the support of grant P30 DA015663 to Dr. MJM at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Declaration of Interests The NIH had no role in the study design, collection, analysis, and interpretation of data, writing of the report, or decision to submit the article for publication. AM has recei
Recent work has suggested that panic attacks may be associated with certain substance use disorders (Baillie & Rapee, 2005; Bernstein, Zvolensky, Sachs-Ericsson, Schmidt, & Bonn-Miller, 2006; Zvolensky, Bernstein, Marshall, & Feldner, 2006; Zvolensky, Cougle, Johnson, Bonn-Miller, & Bernstein, 2010; Zvolensky et al., 2008).

One line of inquiry within this substance use domain has focused on the relation between panic attacks and cigarette smoking. This work was initially stimulated by the observation that panic attacks co-occur with smoking at rates that exceed those found in the general nonpsychiatric population (Amering et al., 1999; Breslau, Kilbey, & Andreski, 1991; Breslau & Klein, 1999; Glassman et al., 1990; R. Goodwin & Hamilton, 2002; Hughes, Hatsukami, Mitchell, & Dahlgren, 1986; Pohl, Yeragani, Balon, Lycaki, & McBride, 1992). Notably, there is evidence to suggest that panic attacks can contribute to the maintenance of smoking (Zvolensky, Schmidt, & Stewart, 2003). For example, panic attacks are associated with more severe nicotine withdrawal symptoms during quitting (E. C.

Marshall, Johnson, Bergman, Gibson, & Zvolensky, 2009), shorter durations of abstinence from smoking (Zvolensky, Lejuez, Kahler, & Brown, 2004), and overall lower success rates in quitting (Piper et al., 2010). Additionally, panic attacks are related to increased motivation to smoke to reduce negative affect (Zvolensky et al., 2005). One pressing, yet unresolved, question pertains to whether panic attacks ��mark�� or explain relations with tobacco use or whether the ��fear of panic-related sensations�� may better explain panic attack-smoking associations. Anxiety sensitivity (AS) is a cognitive characteristic reflecting the extent to which individuals believe anxiety and anxiety-related sensations have harmful consequences (McNally, 2002; Reiss & McNally, 1985).

There is a rich and well-established history between risk for, and incidence of, panic attacks and elevated levels of AS. Integrative models of panic psychopathology and other clinical anxiety conditions (e.g., posttraumatic stress disorder, certain specific phobias) posit that panic attacks play a central role in interoceptive fear conditioning, thereby promoting the belief that certain bodily sensations Batimastat may be personally dangerous or threatening (Bouton, Mineka, & Barlow, 2001; Falsetti & Resnick, 2000; Forsyth & Eifert, 1996; Jones & Barlow, 1990).