title: Abnormalities in cortical gray matter density in borderline personality disorder.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a chronic condition with a strong impact on patients' affective, cognitive and social functioning. Neuroimaging techniques offer invaluable tools to understand the biological substrate of the disease. We aimed to investigate gray matter alterations over the whole cortex in a group of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) patients compared to healthy controls (HC).
  
  
  METHODS
  Magnetic resonance-based cortical pattern matching was used to assess cortical gray matter density (GMD) in 26 BPD patients and in their age- and sex-matched HC (age: 38 ± 11; females: 16, 61%).
  
  
  RESULTS
  BPD patients showed widespread lower cortical GMD compared to HC (4% difference) with peaks of lower density located in the dorsal frontal cortex, in the orbitofrontal cortex, the anterior and posterior cingulate, the right parietal lobe, the temporal lobe (medial temporal cortex and fusiform gyrus) and in the visual cortex (P<0.005). Our BPD subjects displayed a symmetric distribution of anomalies in the dorsal aspect of the cortical mantle, but a wider involvement of the left hemisphere in the mesial aspect in terms of lower density. A few restricted regions of higher density were detected in the right hemisphere. All regions remained significant after correction for multiple comparisons via permutation testing.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  BPD patients feature specific morphology of the cerebral structures involved in cognitive and emotional processing and social cognition/mentalization, consistent with clinical and functional data.
authors.affiliation: Unit of Psychiatry, IRCCS Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio-Fatebenefratelli, via Pilastroni 4, 25125 Brescia, Italy. Electronic address: rrossi@fatebenefratelli.it.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rossi
authors.affiliation: Unit of Psychiatry, IRCCS Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio-Fatebenefratelli, via Pilastroni 4, 25125 Brescia, Italy.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lanfredi
authors.affiliation: LENITEM, Laboratory of Epidemiology, Neuroimaging, & Telemedicine, Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio-Fatebenefratelli, Brescia, Italy.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pievani
authors.affiliation: LENITEM, Laboratory of Epidemiology, Neuroimaging, & Telemedicine, Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio-Fatebenefratelli, Brescia, Italy.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Boccardi
authors.affiliation: Centre for translational Neuroscience and Mental Health, The University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia; Schizophrenia Research Institute, Darlinghurst, Australia; Hunter Medical Research Institute, Newcastle, Australia.
authors.forename: P E
authors.initials: PE
authors.lastname: Rasser
authors.affiliation: Imaging Genetics Center, Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, Department of Neurology, UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: P M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Thompson
authors.affiliation: LENITEM, Laboratory of Epidemiology, Neuroimaging, & Telemedicine, Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio-Fatebenefratelli, Brescia, Italy; Cognition, neuroimaging and brain diseases Laboratory, Centre de Recherche de l'Insitut du Cerveau et de la Moelle (CRICM) UMRS_975, Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie, Paris, France.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Cavedo
authors.affiliation: Unit of Neuropsychology, IRCCS Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio-Fatebenefratelli, Brescia, Italy.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cotelli
authors.affiliation: Unit of Neuropsychology, IRCCS Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio-Fatebenefratelli, Brescia, Italy.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rosini
authors.affiliation: Unit of Psychiatry, IRCCS Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio-Fatebenefratelli, via Pilastroni 4, 25125 Brescia, Italy.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Beneduce
authors.affiliation: Unit of Psychiatry, IRCCS Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio-Fatebenefratelli, via Pilastroni 4, 25125 Brescia, Italy.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bignotti
authors.affiliation: Unit of Psychiatry, IRCCS Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio-Fatebenefratelli, via Pilastroni 4, 25125 Brescia, Italy.
authors.forename: L R
authors.initials: LR
authors.lastname: Magni
authors.affiliation: Unit of Psychiatry, IRCCS Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio-Fatebenefratelli, via Pilastroni 4, 25125 Brescia, Italy.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Rillosi
authors.affiliation: Unit of Neuroradiology, Poliambulanza Hospital, Brescia, Italy.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Magnaldi
authors.affiliation: Unit of Neuroradiology, Poliambulanza Hospital, Brescia, Italy.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cobelli
authors.affiliation: Unit of Psychiatry, IRCCS Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio-Fatebenefratelli, via Pilastroni 4, 25125 Brescia, Italy.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rossi
authors.affiliation: LENITEM, Laboratory of Epidemiology, Neuroimaging, & Telemedicine, Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio-Fatebenefratelli, Brescia, Italy; Memory Clinic and LANVIE, Laboratory of Neuroimaging of Aging, University Hospitals, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: G B
authors.initials: GB
authors.lastname: Frisoni
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001883:Borderline Personality Disorder / Q000473:pathology* / Q000523:psychology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000473:pathology; D066128:Gray Matter / Q000473:pathology*; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000473:pathology*
keywords: Borderline personality disorder; MRI; Neuroimaging