title: Affective instability: toward an integration of neuroscience and psychological perspectives.
abstract: Affective instability is a prominent feature of a wide variety of psychiatric and neurological disorders, yet it has not been systematically studied. It encompasses a number of distinct phenomena, including: (1) frequent affective category shifts, (2) disturbances in affect intensity, (3) excessively rapid emotion rise-times, (4) delayed return to emotional baseline, (5) excessive reactivity to psychosocial cues, (6) endogenously driven, random, chaotic or rapid-cycling changes, and (7) overdramatic expression. To further clarify the construct of affective instability, this article examines the manifestations of affective instability in a range of psychiatric and neurologic disorders, reviews relevant neurobiological and psychological emotion regulatory processes, and considers the psychology of affective instability.
authors.affiliation: James J Peters VA Medical Center, Bronx, NY 10468, USA. harold.w.koenigsberg@gmail.com
authors.forename: Harold W
authors.initials: HW
authors.lastname: Koenigsberg
mesh_terms: D001883:Borderline Personality Disorder / Q000150:complications; D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D006801:Humans; D019964:Mood Disorders / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000503:physiopathology; D009484:Neuropsychology; D011603:Psychophysiology