Lifelong opioidergic vulnerability through early life separation: a recent extension of the false suffocation alarm theory of panic disorder.

•Presentations at the First Symposium On Translational Models Of Panic Disorder.•Physiologic suffocation alarm monitors information about potential suffocation.•Impaired endogenous opioid system basis for heightened suffocation sensitivity.•Sudden loss, childhood separation anxiety antecedents of “spontaneous” panic.•Childhood separations cause lifelong endogenous opioid impairment in normal adults.