Möller Tim Julian, Braun Niclas, Thöne Ann-Kathrin, Herrmann Christoph S, Philipsen Alexandra
Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Experimental Psychology Lab, Department for Psychology, Faculty for Medicine and Health Sciences, Carl von Ossietzky University, Oldenburg, Germany.
Front Psychiatry. 2020 Jun 9;11:474. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00474. eCollection 2020.
Patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) not only experience a strong instability in their affect and interpersonal relations but also disturbances in their self-experience, including dissociation and body-alienation symptoms. It is not yet understood whether an altered sense of ownership (SoO) or sense of agency (SoA) may contribute to these disturbances. One recent hypothesis is that patients with BPD have a reduced sense of self and are therefore more likely to misattribute external objects or actions to their own self than healthy individuals. The present study followed up this hypothesis by investigating whether BPD patients have a more flexible body representation than healthy participants. More specifically, the active rubber hand illusion (aRHI) was applied to 21 patients with BPD and the same number of healthy participants. Using established subjective, electrodermal, and behavioral measures, the participants' SoO and SoA were assessed during the aRHI. The findings show self-reported evidence for higher SoO under anatomical hand congruency as compared to anatomical incongruency, but no evidence for group differences between BPD patients and healthy participants. This finding is inconsistent with previous findings of an enhanced SoO-related body plasticity in BPD patients. Regarding SoA, the findings show self-report evidence of higher SoA in BPD patients versus healthy participants, although this group difference was not evident in the implicit SoA measure (intentional binding). In summary, the present study only reveals partial evidence for a higher body plasticity in BPD patients. Instead, the observed variability in results appears better explainable by some generally elevated perceptual suggestibility of BPD individuals.
边缘型人格障碍（BPD）患者不仅在情感和人际关系上经历强烈的不稳定，而且在自我体验方面也存在障碍，包括解离和身体异化症状。目前尚不清楚所有权感（SoO）或能动性感（SoA）的改变是否可能导致这些障碍。最近的一个假设是，BPD患者的自我感降低，因此比健康个体更有可能将外部物体或行为错误地归因于自己。本研究通过调查BPD患者是否比健康参与者具有更灵活的身体表征来跟进这一假设。更具体地说，将主动橡皮手错觉（aRHI）应用于21名BPD患者和相同数量的健康参与者。使用既定的主观、皮电和行为测量方法，在aRHI期间评估参与者的SoO和SoA。研究结果表明，与解剖结构不一致相比，在解剖结构一致的情况下，自我报告显示SoO更高，但没有证据表明BPD患者和健康参与者之间存在组间差异。这一发现与之前关于BPD患者中与SoO相关的身体可塑性增强的研究结果不一致。关于SoA，研究结果表明，与健康参与者相比，BPD患者的自我报告显示SoA更高，尽管在隐性SoA测量（意向绑定）中这种组间差异并不明显。总之，本研究仅揭示了BPD患者身体可塑性更高的部分证据。相反，观察到的结果变异性似乎可以通过BPD个体普遍较高的感知易感性得到更好的解释。
