Impaired impulse inhibition of emotional stimuli in patients with borderline personality disorder

Huihui Yang,Kaili Zheng,Wanyi Cao,Jun Chu,Jinyao Yi,Wanrong Peng,Zhaoxia Liu,Qian Liu

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-96166-1

Abstract

This study was aimed to investigate whether BPD patients showed impaired impulse inhibition of emotional and non-emotional stimuli and to explore relevant neuroelectrophysiological mechanisms. A total of 32 BPD patients and 32 matched healthy controls were recruited. Self-reported scales were used to measure psychiatric symptoms. The event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded when subjects were performing neutral and emotional Stop Signal Task (SST). Group differences in self-reported scores, behavioral variables and ERPs were compared. The BPD group scored significantly higher on impulsivity, severity of BPD symptoms, levels of depression and anxiety than the control group. In neutral SST, no significant group differences were detected in the amplitude and latency of ERPs components induced. In emotional SST, the P2 amplitude of negative emotion was significantly larger than that of neutral emotion in Go trials. In Stop trials, the P2 amplitude of BPD group was significantly smaller than that of control group, and the N2 amplitude of BPD group was significantly greater than that of control group. BPD patients showed impaired inhibition of emotional stimuli rather than non-emotional stimuli. The deficits of emotional impulse control mainly exhibit at the early attention, stimulus evaluation and conflict detection stages.

Highlights

This study was aimed to investigate whether Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) patients showed impaired impulse inhibition of emotional and non-emotional stimuli and to explore relevant neuroelectrophysiological mechanisms
As the prefrontal cortex was related to successful inhibition, the results revealed that the deficits in inhibitory control of BPD patients were accompanied by specific brain function disturbances[28]
This study found that BPD patients showed inhibition control deficits for emotional stimuli rather than for non-emotional stimuli, which emerged in the early attention distribution, stimuli evaluation and conflict monitoring stages of negative information processing

Summary

Introduction

This study was aimed to investigate whether BPD patients showed impaired impulse inhibition of emotional and non-emotional stimuli and to explore relevant neuroelectrophysiological mechanisms. In Immediate Memory Task (IMT), researchers reported that BPD group showed more motor impulsivity and higher scores of Barratt Impulsiveness Scale than control group[11]. Empirical studies have demonstrated that compared with control subjects, BPD patients reported more negative emotions and more impulsive symptoms than healthy controls[11,20,21]. One study found that BPD patients showed higher accuracy in recognizing facial expressions than the control group[22], suggesting that BPD patients are more sensitive to emotional stimuli. One study showed that emotional intensity and the lack of affect control were positively correlated with BPD features after controlling d epression[25], indicating that BPD patients experience stronger emotion and have more difficulties in inhibiting reaction to emotional stimuli. In directed forgetting task and emotional negative-prime task, Domes et al, (2006) found that BPD patients showed significantly reduced inhibition of negative stimuli than healthy c ontrols[6], suggesting the inability of response inhibition of negative emotion in BPD patients

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