A linkage study of panic disorder.

We tested for linkage between panic disorder and a battery of 29 genetic markers in 26 families. Linkage between panic disorder and 18 of the marker loci could be excluded at a recombination fraction of 0.00, nine at a recombination fraction of 0.05, and four at a recombination fraction of 0.10. The 18 loci are distributed over ten chromosomes. One locus was suggestive of linkage. The maximum lod score for alpha-haptoglobin was 2.27 at a recombination fraction of 0.0, representing odds in favor of linkage of 186.1. alpha-Haptoglobin has been mapped to chromosome 16q22. The results demonstrate that linkage studies of psychiatric disorders can yield informative results by identifying tentative linkages that merit further investigation and by excluding regions of the genome from future linkage searches.