Abstract: Objective  To explore the associations between Traditional Chinese Medicine  (TCM) symptoms in patients diagnosed with panic disorder (PD) and identify the core TCM psychic and somatic symptoms. Methods  A TCM psychic symptom network, a somatic symptom network, a somatic symptom and core psychic symptom network, a core psychic and core somatic symptom network were constructed by using network analysis based on the TCM psychic and somatic symptoms in 183 PD patients. Centralization indices were calculated. Results  In the TCM psychic symptom network, the betweenness was higher for difficulty initiating sleep; the closeness was higher for difficulty initiating sleep, being easily to be frightened and alarmed; the expected influence was higher for nervous and restless, excessive worry inclued. In the TCM somatic symptom network, the betweenness centrality was higher for palpitations, chest tightness; and the closeness  centrality  was higher for palpitations, chest tightness, yellow tongue coating; expected influence was higher for palpitations, and gastric distension. For the network of somatic symptoms and core psychic symptoms,  nervousness and restlessness exhibited high expected influence among  psychic symptoms. Palpitations emerged as the most central symptom in the core psychic and core somatic symptom network. Conclusion  The core TCM psychic symptoms of PD difficulty initiating sleep, nervous ness and restless ness, excessive worry , and being easily to be frightened and alarmed, while the core TCM somatic symptoms are palpitation, chest tightness, abdominal distension and  stomach is swollen, yellow tongue coating. The network structure and core symptoms mainly reflect the pathological connections of the kidney, heart and spleen. The study emphasizes the necessity of syndrome differentiation and treatment for PD based on psychic symptoms and provides feasible strategies for the clinical diagnosis and  therapeutic interventions of PD in TCM.

Key words: panic disorder, Traditional Chinese Medicine, psychic symptom, somatic symptom, network analysis, core symptoms