Recent research has drawn links between panic disorder and bladder problems of largely unknown origins. A study of 146 families builds on earlier findings that a familial, possibly pleiotropic syndrome that includes panic disorder (PD) and interstitial cystitis (IC) is linked to chromosome 13.[1] In a case-controlled study, Columbia University epidemiologist, Myrna Weissman, found that patients with IC and their first-degree relatives also have increased rates of PD and other disorders involving autonomic control. Weissman and her colleagues speculate that many or all of these conditions share a common underlying pathology.