Panic disorder patients and healthy people differently identify their own heart frequency through sound

The ability to detect the perceptual cues related to cardiac activity is an important aspectrelated to the onset and maintenance of some psychopathological disorders, such as panicdisorder. We tested two groups – panic disorder (PD) patients and healthy participants – inorder to examine the ability to estimate participants’ own heart frequency. We used an auditoryidentification task, based on the administration of auditory tracks representative of ecologicalsounds of heartbeat. Results showed that all healthy participants underestimated their ownheart frequency, whereas the majority of PD patients overestimated it. This different responsetendency could influence the development of psychopathologies such as panic disorder. Theseoutcomes suggest the possible development of trainings for PD patients based on the use ofauditory stimulation.