Deficient Amygdala Habituation to Threatening Stimuli in Borderline Personality Disorder Relates to Adverse Childhood Experiences
Abstract
Background Heightened amygdala response to threatening cues has been repeatedly observed in borderline personality disorder (BPD). A previous report linked hyperactivation to deficient amygdala habituation to repeated stimuli, but the biological underpinnings are incompletely understood.Methods We examined a sample of 120 patients with BPD and 115 healthy control subjects with a well-established functional magnetic resonance imaging emotional face processing task to replicate the previously reported amygdala habituation deficit in BPD and probed this neural phenotype for associations with symptom severity and early social risk exposure.Results Our results confirm a significant reduction in amygdala habituation to repeated negative stimuli in BPD (p FWE = .015, peak-level familywise error [FWE] corrected for region of interest). Post hoc comparison and regression analysis did not suggest a role for BPD clinical state (p FWE > .56) or symptom severity (p FWE > .45) for this phenotype. Furthermore, deficient amygdala habituation was significantly related to increased exposure to adverse childhood experiences (p FWE = .013, region of interest corrected).Conclusions Our data replicate a prior report on deficient amygdala habituation in BPD and link this neural phenotype to early adversity, a well-established social environmental risk factor for emotion dysregulation and psychiatric illness.
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Deficits in both inhibition and regulation of hyperactivation by the amygdala and of heightened states of negative emotion have been linked specifically to BPD in the context of a history of childhood adversity.
“However, deficits in both inhibition and regulation of hyperactivation by the amygdala and of heightened states of negative emotion have been linked specifically to BPD in the context of a history of childhood adversity [8].”
From Complex PTSD and borderline personality disorder (2021) · cites this paper as [8]
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Complex PTSD and borderline personality disorder
Ford, J. D., & Courtois, C. A. (2021) · Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation · doi:10.1186/s40479-021-00155-9 · Cited by 209 · see citing works
“However, deficits in both inhibition and regulation of hyperactivation by the amygdala and of heightened states of negative emotion have been linked specifically to BPD in the context of a history of childhood adversity [8].”
Background
- Authors
- Bilek, E., Itz, M. L., Stößel, G., Ma, R., Berhe, O., Clement, L., Zang, Z., Robnik, L., Plichta, M. M., Neukel, C., Schmahl, C., Kirsch, P., Meyer-Lindenberg, A., & Tost, H.
- Affiliations
- Central Institute of Mental Health (DE)
- University Hospital Frankfurt (DE)
- Heidelberg University (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Bilek, Edda
- ORCID
- Venue
- Biological Psychiatry
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2019-12
- Volume
- 86
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 930-938
- ISSN
- 0006-3223 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2952352311
- Cited by
- 39
- References
- 42
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 2
- FWCI
- 7.31
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Biological Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Russian Science Foundation
- Innovative Medicines Initiative (115008)
- Lilly Deutschland
- Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst Baden-Württemberg (MED(16)/16/1)
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Daimler und Benz Stiftung
- Stiftung Synapsis - Alzheimer Forschung Schweiz AFS
- Cilag
- Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma
- Boehringer Ingelheim
- Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (01EF1803A WP3, TO 539/3-1, 01GQ1102, 01GS08147, 01GQ1003B, 01ZX1314G, 01EF1803A)
- Roche
- Seventh Framework Programme (602805, HEALTH-F2-2010-241909, 602450, 115300)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Disorders and Psychopathology
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual Offending
- Keywords
- borderline personality disorder, adverse childhood experiences, threat processing, emotional face processing, emotional dysregulation, childhood adversity, neural phenotypes, symptom severity
- MeSH terms
- Facial Recognition, Adverse Childhood Experiences, Adaptation, Physiological, Adolescent, Adult, Amygdala, Anger, Borderline Personality Disorder, Brain Mapping, Emotions, Fear, Female, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Middle Aged, Young Adult
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