title: Increased prefrontal cortical thickness is associated with enhanced abilities to regulate emotions in PTSD-free women with borderline personality disorder.
abstract: Previous studies suggest that amygdala, insula and prefrontal cortex (PFC) disintegrity play a crucial role in the failure to adequately regulate emotions in Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). However, prior results are confounded by the high rate of comorbidity with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which itself has been associated with changes in frontolimbic circuitry. We thus scrutinized the link between PFC, amygdala, insula, and the ability to regulate emotions, contrasting 17 women with BPD without comorbid PTSD to 27 non-clinical control women and in addition to those with BPD and PTSD (n = 14). BPD women without PTSD, but not those with comorbid PTSD, had increased cortical thickness in the dorsolateral PFC (DLPFC) in comparison to control women. Furthermore, cortical thickness in the DLPFC of BPD women without PTSD positively correlated with emotion regulation scores and furthermore was positively associated with amygdala volume, as well as cortical thickness of the insula. Our findings highlight the importance of disentangling the impact of BPD and PTSD on the brain and suggest possible compensatory mechanisms for the impaired emotion regulation in BPD women without PTSD.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology of Emotion and Affective Neuroscience, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany. hannah.bruehl@fu-berlin.de
authors.forename: Hannah
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bruehl
authors.forename: Sandra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Preißler
authors.forename: Isabella
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Heuser
authors.forename: Hauke R
authors.initials: HR
authors.lastname: Heekeren
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Roepke
authors.forename: Isabel
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Dziobek
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000679:Amygdala / Q000473:pathology; D001883:Borderline Personality Disorder / Q000473:pathology / Q000523:psychology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D015897:Comorbidity; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D009929:Organ Size; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000473:pathology*; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000473:pathology / Q000523:psychology*