Men who commit domestic violence may be suffering a form of panic attack that they direct against their partners, according to one of Britain's most respected experts in the field of domestic abuse.

Dr Elizabeth Gilchrist will launch a five-year, £1 million research project later this year to attempt to prove her initial research findings, which indicate that acts of domestic violence are a defence response to undetected panic attacks.

'I am very clear that there is no excuse for domestic violence,' said Gilchrist, a forensic psychologist at Coventry University who has worked with domestic violence offenders for 16 years. 'This is about looking for effective ways of intervention to make women and children safer.

'I'm aware that our findings could initially look controversial, but the failure of current treatment programmes to stop perpetrators re-offending is evidence enough that we need to look at the issue with fresh eyes.'

Gilchrist's findings have been criticised by campaigners against domestic violence, who fear they will be used by offenders to absolve them of responsibility for their crime.

'This is exactly the sort of dangerous claim that is used by both offenders and victims of abuse to shift responsibility for the crime away from the perpetrator,' said Linda Regan of the Child and Women Abuse Studies Unit at London Metropolitan University. 'If this is true, then why don't the perpetrators hit their bosses and friends as well? Why is it only their partners who get attacked?'

Recent research on jailed offenders in America has found that those committing domestic violence experience sensations, immediately before and during an act of violence, similar to those felt by people having panic attacks.

The research, carried out by Dr David George at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, also showed that the brain mechanisms of offenders that are activated during defensive aggression are similar to those triggered during a panic attack.

Both Gilchrist and the co-author of her study, Dr Ian Mitchell, a neuropsychologist at the University of Birmingham, believe offenders have one of two psychological profiles. Seventy-five per cent register as antisocial narcissists, who attack women in order to exert power. Others are borderline dysphoric, who abuse their partners in an unplanned, spontaneous and reactive manner.

'We need to have a full and frank discussion about domestic violence if we are ever going to have a chance of stopping it,' said Gilchrist. 'Of course, these men need to have a distorted view of women for a panic attack to result in physical aggression, but that doesn't mean there isn't some further reason why their panic sparks such an extreme response.'

The study, which will focus on 500 imprisoned offenders, will first determine whether there is a subgroup of domestic violence perpetrators who are particularly susceptible to panic attacks. If so, Gilchrist and Mitchell will investigate whether there is a form of medical intervention that could suppress the likelihood of a panic attack triggering an aggressive reaction.

Mitchell warns, however, that any treatment will be difficult to administer because panic responses are notoriously difficult to suppress and because, over time, they become more extreme, so any treatment would need to be continually adjusted.