Neural correlates of emotional action control in anger-prone women with borderline personality disorder

Bertsch, Katja; Roelofs, Karin; Roch, Paul Jonathan; Ma, Bo; Hensel, Saskia; Herpertz, Sabine C.; Volman, Inge

doi:10.1503/jpn.170102

Cited by 48 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 51 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In a randomized, double-blind design, participants received either 24 IU of oxytocin or placebo intranasally. We expected a replication of the results by Bertsch et al (8) with more approach behavior to angry faces in BPD in comparison to avoidance behavior. In the oxytocin condition, we expected reduced approach behavior toward potentially threatening angry stimuli in patients with BPD.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 50%

“…Furthermore, faster initial saccades into the eyes-the most threatening part-of angry faces in patients with BPD suggest approach rather than avoidance behavior to interpersonal threat cues (7). In an experimental approach-avoidance task (AAT), anger-prone women with BPD reacted faster in approaching than avoiding angry-potentially threatening-faces than healthy women did (8). In such tasks, appetitive stimuli, such as happy faces, usually trigger approach behavior in healthy participants, while aversive or threatening stimuli, such as angry faces, trigger avoidance (9).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Oxytocin Normalizes Approach–Avoidance Behavior in Women With Borderline Personality Disorder

et al. 2020

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: Interpersonal deficits are a core symptom of borderline personality disorder (BPD), which could be related to increased social threat sensitivity and a tendency to approach rather than avoid interpersonal threats. The neuropeptide oxytocin has been shown to reduce threat sensitivity in patients with BPD and to modify approach-avoidance behavior in healthy volunteers.Methods: In a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled between-subject design, 53 unmedicated women with BPD and 61 healthy women participated in an approach-avoidance task 75 min after intranasal substance administration (24 IU of oxytocin or placebo). The task assesses automatic approach-avoidance tendencies in reaction to facial expressions of happiness and anger.Results: While healthy participants responded faster to happy than angry faces, the opposite response pattern, that is, faster reactions to angry than happy faces, was found in patients with BPD. In the oxytocin condition, the "congruency effect" (i.e., faster avoidance of facial anger and approach of facial happiness vice versa) was increased in both groups. Notably, patients with BPD exhibited a congruency effect toward angry faces in the oxytocin but not in the placebo condition.Conclusions: This is the second report of deficient fast, automatic avoidance responses in terms of approach behavior toward interpersonal threat cues in patients with BPD. Intranasally administered oxytocin was found to strengthen avoidance behavior to social threat cues and, thus, to normalize fast action tendencies in BPD. Together with the previously reported oxytocinergic reduction of social threat hypersensitivity, these results suggest beneficial effects of oxytocin on interpersonal dysfunctioning in BPD.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 50%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Oxytocin Normalizes Approach–Avoidance Behavior in Women With Borderline Personality Disorder

et al. 2020

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…It is therefore not surprising that reduced prefrontal (particularly orbitofrontal and ventrolateral prefrontal) activations are especially reported in those studies in which patients are instructed to use reappraisal in order to regulate their emotional responses to negative emotional stimuli [38, 39], while no differences or even increased prefrontal activations compared to healthy volunteers were found in emotion paradigms without explicit regulation instructions [40, 41]. In a recent study, we found similar prefrontal activations in patients with BPD and healthy volunteers who were required to control and override fast emotional action tendencies of avoiding angry and ap proaching happy faces [42]. However, the functional coupling between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the amygdala was significantly reduced in the patients.…”

Section: Neurobiological Correlatesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Behavioral and Neurobiological Correlates of Disturbed Emotion Processing in Borderline Personality Disorder

Bertsch

Hillmann

Herpertz³

2018

Psychopathology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

One of the core symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD) is emotion dysregulation, which comprises emotion sensitivity, heightened and labile negative affect, deficient appropriate regulation strategies, and a surplus of maladaptive regulation strategies. Although earlier studies provided some evidence for threat hypersensitivity in terms of a negatively biased perception of other people (“negativity bias”) and deficits in the recognition of full-blown anger, i.e., higher error rates and slower reaction times, researchers have only recently started studying effects of interindividual differences (e.g., sex, impulsivity, aggressiveness) and stimulus complexity as well as associations with early adversity, developmental aspects, or the specificity for BPD. Recent data also suggest a deficit in the detection of positive emotions, which needs to be addressed in more detail since it may prevent the patients from recognizing safety signals and from making positive interpersonal experiences. Neurobiologically, threat hypersensitivity has been related to increased and prolonged amygdala responses, while deficient emotion regulation was associated with reduced prefrontal inhibition of the amygdala. First results suggest that these neural alterations may be modulated by psychotherapeutic treatment focusing on emotion regulation.

show abstract

“…Thus, T effects on amygdala reactivity might depend on an individual's motivational tendencies toward threat signals. Indeed, as reviewed earlier, aggressive individuals tend to dwell on threat cues, and some evidence suggests that they show an approach bias toward such stimuli (Beaver, Lawrence, Passamonti, & Calder, 2008;Bertsch et al, 2018;.…”

mentioning

confidence: 89%

From words to action: Implicit attention to antisocial semantic cues predicts aggression and amygdala reactivity to angry faces in healthy young women

Buades-Rotger

Krämer

2018

Aggressive Behavior

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Implicit measures of aggressiveness are able to circumvent response biases that plague self-reports, but it is unclear how they link to neural activation during aggressive interactions and to aggression-related endocrine function. Here, we tested whether an implicit attentional bias toward antisocial semantic information was associated with endogenous testosterone (T) and cortisol (C) levels, as well as with aggressive behavior and amygdala reactivity to angry faces in a separate competitive paradigm. On Day one, participants (39 healthy young women) completed an emotional word Stroop task in which they had to indicate the font color of antisocial, prosocial, or neutral words. On Day two, we measured subjects' brain activity during a competitive reaction time task in which the female opponent displayed angry or neutral facial expressions at the start of each trial and provoked participants with increasingly strong sound blasts. T and C were measured in saliva during a regular weekday as well as before and after scanning. We previously showed that aggression was associated with enhanced amygdala reactivity to angry faces in this sample. The present analyses revealed that subjects were slower to identify the font color of antisocial relative to neutral words, and that this attentional bias predicted higher aggression. T and C were uncorrelated with Stroop scores. Crucially, the relationship between implicit attention to antisocial words and aggression was mediated by amygdala reactivity to angry faces. Our data indicate that a tendency to dwell on implicit hostile cues reflects enhanced responsivity to overt anger displays.

show abstract

Neural correlates of emotional action control in anger-prone women with borderline personality disorder

Abstract: The results indicate reduced lateral prefrontal-amygdala communication during emotional action control in anger-prone women with BPD. The findings provide a possible neural mechanism underlying difficulties with controlling emotional impulses in patients with BPD.

Cited by 48 publications

References 51 publications

Oxytocin Normalizes Approach–Avoidance Behavior in Women With Borderline Personality Disorder

Oxytocin Normalizes Approach–Avoidance Behavior in Women With Borderline Personality Disorder

Behavioral and Neurobiological Correlates of Disturbed Emotion Processing in Borderline Personality Disorder

From words to action: Implicit attention to antisocial semantic cues predicts aggression and amygdala reactivity to angry faces in healthy young women

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About