Frontal Lobe Dysfunctions in Borderline Personality Disorder? Neuropsychological Findings

Abstract

This study aims to determine whether specific neuropsychological performance impairments in borderline patients can be objectified and whether these findings indicate frontal dysfunctions. Twenty-three patients with borderline personality disorder and 23 normal controls were examined using a neuropsychological test battery to assess intelligence, attentiveness, proneness to interference, learning and memory, as well as planning and problem solving. All subjects filled out standardized questionnaires to assess aggressiveness and impulsiveness in the context of these cognitive performance areas. The neuropsychological test results of the borderline patients were comparable to those of the controls. Although there were no indications of frontal dysfunction of cognitive information processing, inverse correlations were found between the severity of borderline-related personality traits regarding impulsiveness and various areas of cognitive performance. Borderline personality patients show no indications of frontal cognitive dysfunction. Further research is needed to clarify the relationship between impulsiveness and cognitive information processing in borderline personality disorder, including a dimensional approach to personality and personality disorder.

Impulsivity in Borderline Personality Disorder: Impairment in Self-Report Measures, but Not Behavioral Inhibition

“…Most self-report scales showed large group differences, with BPD subjects showing stronger impulsivity. Higher values for BPD patients on these scales are in line with many other studies using self-report measures in BPD [10][11][12][13][14][15]17] . High overall interrelations between different self-report scales indicate that, in general, they measure rather similar constructs.…”

“…While Leyton et al [18] found significantly more errors in a go/no go task in a group of 13 BPD patients, and Rentrop et al [19] found more commission errors in BPD patients as compared to HC, most studies have failed to find deficits in BPD samples. Two studies did not find a different performance in go/no go tasks in groups of 9 patients each [11,20] . Similarly, other studies did not find differences between 24 BPD patients as compared to patients with major depression (MDD) and to HC in a stop signal task, a continuous performance task and a card sorting test [21] , or did not report significant differences between BPD subjects and HC in a stop signal task [22] .…”

“…Higher values on the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS) [9] were found for BPD as compared with healthy control subjects (HC) [10][11][12] , with patients suffering from other personality disorders (PD) or bipolar II disorder [13] , and with subjects suffering from damage to the orbitofrontal cortex [14] . Occurrence and severity of the BPD symptoms were shown to be correlated with impulsivity as measured by the BIS [15] and Eysenck's [16] Impulsivity Questionnaire (I-7) [17] .…”

Response Inhibition in Borderline Personality Disorder: Performance in a Go/Nogo Task

“…In both studies no significant difference in response inhibition between the groups was found [15,16] . However, at least in 1 study the sample size of n = 8 might have resulted in insufficient power to detect differences.…”

“…So far, only visual Go/Nogo tasks have been used in BPD patients, but no indicators were found for impaired performance [15,16] .…”