Enhanced Processing of Painful Emotions in Patients With Borderline Personality Disorder
A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15518987 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Vera Flasbeck (0000-0001-6405-4567, LWL-Universitätsklinikum Bochum, corresponding author), Björn Enzi (Ruhr University Bochum), Martin Brüne (0000-0003-2258-7589, LWL-Universitätsklinikum Bochum) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 10 |
| Pages | 357-357 |
| Publication date | 2019-05-27 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Frontiers in Psychiatry (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1664-0640 • E-ISSN: 1664-0640 |
| Publisher | Frontiers Media (PUBLISHER • CH) |
| DOI | 10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00357 |
| PMID | 31191371 |
| OpenAlex | W2947424230 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 50 |
Previous research has demonstrated that patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) are more sensitive to negative emotions and often show poor cognitive empathy, yet preserved or even superior emotional empathy. However, little is known about the neural correlates of empathy. Here, we examined empathy for pain in 20 patients with BPD and 19 healthy controls (HC) in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, which comprised an empathy for pain paradigm showing facial emotions prior to hands exposed to painful stimuli. We found a selectively enhanced activation of the right supramarginal gyrus for painful hand pictures following painful facial expressions in BPD patients, and lower activation to nonpainful pictures following angry expressions. Patients with BPD showed less activation in the left supramarginal gyrus when viewing angry facial expressions compared to HC, independent of the pain condition. Moreover, we found differential activation of the left anterior insula, depending on the preceding facial expression exclusively in patients. The findings suggest that empathy for pain becomes selectively enhanced, depending on the emotional context information in patients with BPD. Another preliminary finding was an attenuated response to emotions in patients receiving psychotropic medication compared to unmedicated patients. These effects need to be replicated in larger samples. Together, increased activation during the observation of painful facial expressions seems to reflect emotional hypersensitivity in BPD
Audiology · Borderline personality disorder · Cognition · Context (archaeology · Empathy · Facial expression · Functional magnetic resonance imaging · Psychiatry · Supramarginal gyrus · Clinical Psychology · Medicine · Mental Health and Psychiatry · Neuroscience · Pain Management and Placebo Effect · Psychology · Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments
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Circular analysis in systems neuroscience
Meta-analytic evidence for common and distinct neural networks associated with directly experienced pain and empathy for pain
The neuronal basis and ontogeny of empathy and mind reading
Emotional reactions to dramatic film stimuli
Attachment and Borderline Personality Disorder
Measuring individual differences in empathy
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |