Emotional Processing, Response Inhibition and Executive Planning in Borderline Personality Disorder

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

2 Semnan University, Semnan, Iran

3 Islamic Azad University, Central Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) have been described as highly vigilant for social stimuli, especially for facial emotional recognition. It has been argued that impulsivity and cognitive inflexibility are core features of BPD. The aim of this study was to investigate emotional processing and cognitive functions in individuals with BPD. An ex-post facto method with two groups is used. Forty-four outpatients with BPD, aged 18 to 55, were selected through the inclusion criteria and forty-four healthy participants were selected using convenient sampling method and matched based on their gender. Both groups completed Continuous Performance Test (CPT), Tower of London (TOL), Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III (MCMI-III) and the Ekman's 60 facial expressions test. The data was then analyzed by using MANOVA. The results showed that BPD group performed better than healthy group in recognizing fear, sadness and disgust (P=0.001), but there was no significant difference in the recognition of positive emotions such as surprise and happiness (P>0.05). Moreover, the healthy group was significantly better than the BPD group at recognizing anger (P=0.005). In addition, the results showed that the healthy group outperformed the BPD on CPT-commission error and TOL-scores (P=0.0001). It seems that there is a bias in emotional processing of participants with BPD, as they interpret neutral social cues negatively. Also, impaired response inhibition and executive planning could have a bidirectional interaction with emotional dysregulation which could be related to common underlying brain circuits. Thus, it is practical to include appropriate treatment strategies to target these domains.

Keywords

Emotional Processing, Response Inhibition and Executive Planning in Borderline Personality Disorder © 2022 by Zeynab Alimadadi; Saeed Azami; Azam Baktashian is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 

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Mental Health: Research and Practice
Volume 1, Issue 1
July 2022
Pages 40-47

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History

  • Receive Date: 25 December 2021
  • Revise Date: 25 February 2022
  • Accept Date: 12 February 2022

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