Common and distinct brain functional alterations in pharmacotherapy treatment-na ïve female borderline personality disorder patients with and without auditory verbal hallucinations: a pilot study

This study aimed to investigate whole-brain functional connectivity (FC), as measured by functional connectivity density (FCD), and its relationship with AVH in BPD. 65 pharmacotherapy treatment-na ïve female BPD patients (30 with AVH and 35 without AVH), and 35 female healthy controls were investigated. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were collected to assess whole-brain FC and functional connectivity density mapping (FCDM) was applied to the fMRI data to compute FCD featur es. Compared to the healthy controls, both BPD groups (BPD–AVH and BPD without AVH) exhibited significantly higher gFCD values in the bilateral prefrontal lobe, bilateral orbital lobule, and bilateral insula, and significantly lower gFCD values in the SMA, right anterior temporal lobule, and the A CC. These altered regions were significantly associated with AVH in the BPD subjects. Moreover, higher gFCD values were observed in the left posterior temporal lobule and posterior frontal lobule. Aberrant alterations also emerged in the left posterior temporal lobule and posterior frontal lobule, m ainly in Broca and Wernicke regions. Nevertheless, there was no significant correlation between gFCD values and the severity of AVH as measured by the AVH scores. In summary, we have identified aberrations in the FC and brain metabolism of the aforementioned neural circuits/networks, which may provi de new insights into BPD–AVH and facilitate the development of therapeutic approaches for treati...
Source: European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience - Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research