Relationships among Panic-Fear Personality, Aging, and Ventilatory Activity

We have studied 204 healthy male subjects ranging in age from 20 to 59 years. They were divided into four 10-year age groups. Each age group was further divided into 2 subgroups with high and low Panic-Fear scores. The ventilatory activities of all the groups were compared. In the younger generation (20–39 years), the low PF group revealed a higher slope in CO₂ response curve than the high PF group (p<0.05). This result was considered to be related to the difference in CO₂ production between the two groups. In the older age groups, however, the high PF subjects exhibited a tendency to increase the CO₂ response slope with increasing ages. This contradictory result was thought to be due to the age dependent change in biogenic amine activity.