BackgroundOne of the core symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD) is the instability in interpersonal relationships. This might be related to existent differences in mindreading between BPD patients and healthy individuals. MethodsWe examined the behavioural and neurophysiological (fMRI) responses of BPD patients and healthy controls (HC) during performance of the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ test (RMET).ResultsMental state discrimination was significantly better and faster for affective eye gazes in BPD patients than in HC. At the neurophysiological level, this was manifested in a stronger activation of the amygdala and greater activity of the medial frontal gyrus, the left temporal pole and the middle temporal gyrus during affective eye gazes. In contrast, HC subjects showed a greater activation in the insula and the superior temporal gyri.ConclusionThese findings indicate that BPD patients are highly vigilant to social stimuli, maybe because they resonate intuitively with mental states of others.

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2 J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2017;45:369-380.