Department of Basic Neurosciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
Department of Basic Neurosciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland; Department of Mental Health and Psychiatry, Service of Psychiatric Specialties, Mood Disorders Unit, University Hospitals of Geneva, Switzerland.
Psychiatry Res Neuroimaging. 2017 Nov 30;269:62-72. doi: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2017.08.011. Epub 2017 Sep 15.
Humans are sensitive to gaze direction from early life, and gaze has social and affective values. Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a clinical condition characterized by emotional dysregulation and enhanced sensitivity to affective and social cues. In this study we wanted to investigate the temporal-spatial dynamics of spontaneous gaze processing in BPD. We used a 2-back-working-memory task, in which neutral faces with direct and averted gaze were presented. Gaze was used as an emotional modulator of event-related-potentials to faces. High density EEG data were acquired in 19 females with BPD and 19 healthy women, and analyzed with a spatio-temporal microstates analysis approach. Independently of gaze direction, BPD patients showed altered N170 and P200 topographies for neutral faces. Source localization revealed that the anterior cingulate and other prefrontal regions were abnormally activated during the N170 component related to face encoding, while middle temporal deactivations were observed during the P200 component. Post-task affective ratings showed that BPD patients had difficulty to disambiguate neutral gaze. This study provides first evidence for an early neural bias toward neutral faces in BPD independent of gaze direction and also suggests the importance of considering basic aspects of social cognition in identifying biological risk factors of BPD.
人类从早期生活就对注视方向敏感,而注视具有社会和情感价值。边缘型人格障碍(BPD)是一种以情绪失调和对情感和社会线索的敏感性增强为特征的临床状况。在这项研究中,我们想调查 BPD 中自发注视处理的时空动力学。我们使用了一个 2 -back 工作记忆任务,其中呈现了直接和回避注视的中性面孔。注视被用作面孔事件相关电位的情绪调制器。在 19 名 BPD 女性和 19 名健康女性中采集了高密度 EEG 数据,并使用时空微状态分析方法进行了分析。无论注视方向如何,BPD 患者的中性面孔的 N170 和 P200 地形图都发生了改变。源定位显示,在前扣带和其他前额叶区域在与面孔编码相关的 N170 成分期间异常激活,而在 P200 成分期间观察到中颞叶去激活。任务后情感评定表明,BPD 患者难以区分中性注视。这项研究首次提供了证据,表明 BPD 中存在一种对中性面孔的早期神经偏见,这种偏见独立于注视方向,也表明在确定 BPD 的生物学风险因素时,考虑社会认知的基本方面很重要。