Abstract
According to the Biosocial theory, Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is developed by a biological predisposition to hyperarousal and hyperreactivity combined with an invalidating environment. Although widely supported by subjective measures, the impaired insight present in BPD may skew results, and thus psychophysiological measures have been suggested as an alternative method of examining possible biological differences in BPD. The current review aimed to critically assess psychophysiological research of BPD by electronic searching of relevant databases, with 22 articles meeting inclusion criteria. Results showed that in contrast to the hyperarousal proposed in the Biosocial theory, BPD was associated with hypoarousal and hyporeactivity to non-emotionally valenced stimuli. However, there was also evidence of BPD hyperreactivity towards negatively valenced stimuli, and impaired habituation during stressor tasks. As current psychophysiological results were inconsistent, it has been postulated that there may be possible subtypes of BPD. Further, evolutionary-based theories do not appear to adequately explain the complexity of emotion dysregulation in BPD, thus the Emotional Coherence theory has been proposed as an alternate method of conceptualising the role of psychophysiology in BPD. From the lack of clear or consistent findings, further research in the area appears necessary to determine the role of psychophysiology in BPD.
Highlights
The postulate of baseline hyperarousal will be reviewed, and it will be suggested that hypoarousal, rather than hyperarousal, is apparent in baseline levels of those diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)
Aversive auditory stimuli are likely to have different results to that of an auditory discrimination task, where psychophysiological reactivity is likely to be influenced by habituation. These results suggest that in general, individuals with BPD do not show significant differences in reactivity to nonemotional stimuli when compared to controls, this is limited only to auditory stimuli, and further research is needed to investigate reactivity to other non-emotional stimuli
BPD has long been considered a disorder where individuals are biologically predisposed to emotion dysregulation through baseline hyperarousal, hyperreactivity and impaired habituation
Summary
The purpose of the current review is to compare and contrast empirical research investigating biological hyperarousal and hyperreactivity to stimuli in individuals with BPD, and discuss these results in light of the Biosocial theory
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