Abstract
Impulsivity is a central symptom of borderline personality disorder (BPD) and its neural basis may be instantiated in a frontoparietal network involved in response inhibition. However, research has yet to determine whether neural activation differences in BPD associated with response inhibition are attributed to attentional saliency, which is subserved by a partially overlapping network of brain regions. Patients with BPD (n = 45) and 29 healthy controls (HCs; n = 29) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while completing a novel go/no-go task with infrequent odd-ball trials to control for attentional saliency. Contrasts reflecting a combination of response inhibition and attentional saliency (no-go > go), saliency processing alone (oddball > go), and response inhibition controlling for attentional saliency (no-go > oddball) were compared between BPD and HC. Compared to HC, BPD showed less activation in the combined no-go > go contrast in the right posterior inferior and middle-frontal gyri, and less activation for oddball > go in left-hemispheric inferior frontal junction, frontal pole, superior parietal lobe, and supramarginal gyri. Crucially, BPD and HC showed no activation differences for the no-go > oddball contrast. In BPD, higher vlPFC activation for no-go > go was correlated with greater self-rated BPD symptoms, whereas lower vlPFC activation for oddball > go was associated with greater self-rated attentional impulsivity. Patients with BPD show frontoparietal disruptions related to the combination of response inhibition and attentional saliency or saliency alone, but no specific response inhibition neural activation difference when attentional saliency is controlled. The findings suggest a neural dysfunction in BPD underlying attention to salient or infrequent stimuli, which is supported by a negative correlation with self-rated impulsiveness.
Highlights
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a psychiatric disorder characterized by impulsive behaviors, such as substance abuse and self-harm (American Psychiatric Association, 2013)
Performance was operationalized as percent correct responses over all trials, and did not significantly differ between the groups (F = 2.904, p = 0.093, df = 72), there was a trend toward borderline personality disorder (BPD) patients having poorer performances (BPDmean = 0.92% correct, S.D. = 0.079; HCmean = 0.95% correct, S.D. = 0.059)
We are the first to uncover differential patterns of neural activation associated with response inhibition and attentional saliency in patients with BPD compared to healthy controls (HCs)
Summary
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a psychiatric disorder characterized by impulsive behaviors, such as substance abuse and self-harm (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). The go/no-go (GNG) paradigm has been used most frequently in neuroimaging studies of BPD, as the task has classically been used to investigate the neural structures and functions involved in response inhibition in healthy and clinical populations (Aron, Robbins, & Poldrack, 2014; Drewe, 1975). Impulsivity is a central symptom of borderline personality disorder (BPD) and its neural basis may be instantiated in a frontoparietal network involved in response inhibition. Research has yet to determine whether neural activation differences in BPD associated with response inhibition are attributed to attentional saliency, which is subserved by a partially overlapping network of brain regions. Patients with BPD show frontoparietal disruptions related to the combination of response inhibition and attentional saliency or saliency alone, but no specific response inhibition neural activation difference when attentional saliency is controlled. The findings suggest a neural dysfunction in BPD underlying attention to salient or infrequent stimuli, which is supported by a negative correlation with self-rated impulsiveness
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