• The aetiology of panic disorder is multi-factorial, including environmental, genetic, and neurobiological factors.

• Among environmental factors, severe early traumatic life events (e.g. separation from parents, sexual abuse) have been associated with panic disorder, while parental rearing styles seem to have only a minor role.

• Panic disorder has a strong genetic component with an interaction of multiple risk genes, each with only a minor individual effect

• Evidence for neurobiological dysfunctions in panic disorder is derived from the efficacy of certain drugs and from comparisons of...

• The aetiology of panic disorder is multi-factorial, including environmental, genetic, and neurobiological factors.

• Among environmental factors, severe early traumatic life events (e.g. separation from parents, sexual abuse) have been associated with panic disorder, while parental rearing styles seem to have only a minor role.

• Panic disorder has a strong genetic component with an interaction of multiple risk genes, each with only a minor individual effect

• Evidence for neurobiological dysfunctions in panic disorder is derived from the efficacy of certain drugs and from comparisons of panic patients to healthy controls. Among other hypotheses, dysfunctions of serotonergic neurotransmission may play a role in the aetiology of panic disorder.