Experimental models of anxiety. Problems and perspectives.

In a brief review of the field of experimental psychopathology, the author observes that few adequate laboratory models of anxiety have been produced. Criteria to set up valid anxiety models are discussed. The carbon dioxide inhalation technique, an anxiomimetic intervention, is then proposed as a new human panic attack model and compared to the existing lactate infusion method. Both appear as promising agents in the experimental study of panic anxiety.