Potentiated Amygdala Response to Repeated
Emotional Pictures in Borderline Personality Disorder
Erin A. Hazlett, Jing Zhang, Antonia S. New, Yuliya Zelmanova, Kim E. Goldstein, M. Mehmet Haznedar,
David Meyerson, Marianne Goodman, Larry J. Siever, and King-Wai Chu
Background: Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by an inability to regulate emotional responses. The amygdala is
important in learning about the valence (goodness and badness) of stimuli and functions abnormally in BPD.
Methods: Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was employed in three groups: unmedicated BPD (n ⫽ 33) and
schizotypal personality disorder (n ⫽ 28) participants and healthy control subjects (n ⫽ 32) during a task involving an intermixed series of
unpleasant, neutral, and pleasant pictures each presented twice within their respective trial block/run. The amygdala was hand-traced on
each participant’s structural MRI scan and co-registered to their MRI scan. Amygdala responses were examined with a mixed-model
multivariate analysis of variance.
Results: Compared with both control groups, BPD patients showed greater amygdala activation, particularly to the repeated emotional but
not neutral pictures, and a prolonged return to baseline for the overall blood oxygen level-dependent response averaged across all pictures.
Despite amygdala overactivation, BPD patients showed blunted self-report ratings of emotional but not neutral pictures. Fewer dissociative
symptoms in both patient groups were associated with greater amygdala activation to repeated unpleasant pictures.
Conclusions: The increased amygdala response to the repeated emotional pictures observed in BPD was not observed in schizotypal
patients, suggesting diagnostic specificity. This BPD-related abnormality is consistent with the well-documented clinical feature of high
sensitivity to emotional stimuli with unusually strong and long-lasting reactions. The finding of a mismatch between physiological and
self-report measures of emotion reactivity in BPD patients suggests they may benefit from treatments targeting emotion recognition.
Key Words: Amygdala, arousal, borderline personality disorder,
emotion, fMRI, schizotypal personality disorder, valence
D
eficits in emotion regulation are a core feature of borderline
personality disorder (BPD) (1-4). Patients with BPD have
suicide rates 50 times the general population (5) and utilize
more mental health resources than individuals with other psychiatric disorders (6,7); because BPD is present in approximately 2% to
5.9% of the general population, it is at least as prevalent as schizophrenia and bipolar I disorder (8-10). Affective instability in BPD is
characterized as an inability to regulate emotional responses
(11,12), with a high sensitivity to emotional stimuli and unusually
strong and long-lasting reactions (2,13). This phenomenological
description suggests that BPD patients may have an abnormality in
their decrement of response to repeatedly presented emotional
stimuli. Habituation is defined as the decrease in physiological responsivity that occurs to a repeated presentation of the same stimulus (14,15). Understanding the neural substrates of emotion-processing deficits in BPD may ultimately help target biological or
psychological treatments and predict which individuals with BPD
respond best to a specific type of treatment. This strategy has
shown promise in predicting response to cognitive behavioral therapy in depressed patients (e.g., [16]).
From the Department of Psychiatry (EAH, JZ, ASN, YZ, KEG, MMH, DM, MG,
LJS), Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York; Mental Illness Research,
Education and Clinical Center, Veterans Integrated Service Network
(VISN) 3 (EAH, ASN, MG, LJS, K-WC); Department of Psychiatry (MMH,
LJS), James J. Peters Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Bronx, New York.
Address correspondence to Erin A. Hazlett, Ph.D., Mental Illness Research,
Education, and Clinical Center, James J. Peters Veterans Affairs Medical
Center, 130 West Kingsbridge Road, Room 6A-45, Bronx, NY 10468;
E-mail: erin.hazlett@mssm.edu.
Received Jun 22, 2011; revised Mar 19, 2012; accepted Mar 25, 2012.
0006-3223/$36.00
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2012.03.027
The amygdala plays an important role in modulating attention/
vigilance, particularly in potentially threatening social situations,
and perceiving the valence of events/objects and emotional expressions of others (17-19). Translational neuroscience animal models indicate the amygdala plays a central role in learning about
unpleasant and pleasantly valenced stimuli (20). Given BPD patients exhibit emotion dysregulation, it is not surprising that the
amygdala is the most investigated brain structure in functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of this disorder, and the
majority employed standardized photographic images from the
International Affective Picture System (IAPS) (21). Yet, regardless of
whether pictures, faces, or scripts were used, studies primarily show
amygdala overactivity in BPD during the processing of unpleasant
stimuli (13,22-27).
One possible mechanism accounting for amygdala overactivity
in BPD is impaired habituation. Habituation is one of the most
documented and fundamental forms of nervous system plasticity
(28). The initial response to a novel stimulus involves a rapid shift of
attentional processes (i.e., an orienting response), but with one or
more repeated presentations without meaningful consequences,
response amplitude is reduced. Prior studies in healthy adults document strong evidence of a decrement in the amygdala blood
oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) response to repeatedly presented
emotional stimuli (e.g.,[18,29]). Animal models (30,31) and human
work (32,33) also pinpoint the amygdala as an important component of the system involved in the acquisition and memory storage
of unpleasant stimuli. The present study is the first to examine
whether BPD patients show abnormal amygdala habituation
and/or differences in the shape, amplitude, and habituation of the
BOLD response curve to repeated emotional stimuli.
We (Hazlett et al. [34]) and others (35-37) have shown that BPD
patients exhibit exaggerated affective startle to borderline-salient
stimuli compared with healthy control subjects (HCs), which may
be mediated by symptom severity (e.g., [37]). Animal models indicate whole-body startle is modulated by the amygdala in the conBIOL PSYCHIATRY 2012;72:448 – 456
© 2012 Society of Biological Psychiatry
BIOL PSYCHIATRY 2012;72:448 – 456 449
E.A. Hazlett et al.
text of fear conditioning (20), and we examined startle-eyeblink
amplitude, a component of whole-body startle during the processing of borderline-salient (e.g., suicidal) and neutral (e.g., coin)
words. Compared with HCs, BPD patients showed exaggerated
startle amplitude during unpleasant but not neutral words (34). In
contrast, on self-report, the BPD patients showed a blunted response by rating the unpleasant words as less unpleasant but did
not differ from the HCs for the neutral word condition. This mismatch between the physiological and subjective response to emotional stimuli is consistent with a psychophysiological ambulatory
monitoring study that also reported an inability to label emotions
(35) and fMRI studies reporting a mismatch between amygdala
activation and self-report ratings in BPD (22). The present study
further examines the concept that BPD is characterized by a mismatch between physiological and self-report responses to emotional stimuli.
This fMRI study addresses several key issues unresolved by prior
BPD work. First, given unpleasant pictures are highly arousing compared with neutral pictures or a resting state, we controlled for both
valence and arousal levels in our study by including three picture
conditions (unpleasant/high arousal vs. neutral/low arousal vs.
pleasant/high arousal) using the standardized IAPS library (21). Second, as a reliability check, subjective emotion was measured using
self-report ratings of the pictures both in the magnet and following
the session. Third, the diagnostic specificity of amygdala dysfunction in BPD was addressed by including BPD patients with no
schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) traits and a psychiatric control group of SPD patients without BPD traits. Fourth, the shape of
the amygdala BOLD response curve and its change over time was
examined during novel and repeated presentations of the emotional and neutral pictures.
To examine the hypothesis that BPD patients exhibit high sensitivity to emotional stimuli and unusually strong and long-lasting
reactions as measured by amygdala activation, we presented each
of the pictures twice within their respective trial block/run. This
allowed an examination of changes in the BOLD response from the
novel to the repeated picture presentation. Additionally, we examined the time course of the amygdala BOLD response curves. Compared with both control groups, we hypothesized that BPD patients
would show a 1) protracted amygdala BOLD response (i.e., slower
return to baseline), particularly following emotional pictures; 2)
pattern of greater amygdala activation to repeated compared with
novel emotional but not neutral pictures; and 3) mismatch between
their amygdala and self-report response to emotional pictures. Exploratory correlations between amygdala activation to the repeated unpleasant pictures and self-reported symptom severity
scales were conducted separately for the patient groups. We used
the strict criteria of Vul et al. (38) to conduct our correlational analysis, which involved the mean BOLD response (area under curve) for
all voxels within our amygdala region of interest (i.e., aggregated
data) that was traced on structural magnetic resonance imaging
(MRI) for each participant blind to their diagnosis and functional
imaging data. A standard whole-brain analysis using FSL (4.1; FMRIB
Analysis Group, Oxford, United Kingdom) (39) was also conducted
to confirm our amygdala region of interest results and explore
other regions.
Methods and Materials
Participants
Thirty-three patients with BPD, 28 patients with SPD, and 32 HCs
were included (Table 1; Table S1 in Supplement 1 for additional
demographic/clinical/exclusionary criteria details). The groups did
not significantly differ in age, gender, or education and all patients
met DSM-IV criteria. All patients were unmedicated at the time of
their fMRI scan (⬎6 weeks) and most were never previously medicated. Patients with a history of schizophrenia, psychotic disorder,
bipolar (type I) affective disorder, or current major depressive disorder (MDD) (episode occurring within 2 months of the scan) were
excluded. Healthy control participants had no Axis I or II diagnosis
and no Axis I disorder in any first-degree family member. All participants provided written informed consent in accordance with the
Mount Sinai School of Medicine Institutional Review Board guidelines.
With few exceptions noted in Table S1 in Supplement 1, all
participants completed psychometric self-report measures of aggression (Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire [40]), impulsivity
(Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-11 [41]), affective lability (Affective Lability Scale [42]), dissociative symptoms (Dissociative Experiences
Scale [43]), affective intensity (Affective Intensity Measure [44]), and
childhood abuse and neglect (Childhood Trauma Questionnaire
[45]). One-way between-group (HC vs. BPD vs. SPD) analyses of
variance were conducted on the total scores and follow-up t tests
were conducted to determine which groups differed (Table S1 in
Supplement 1).
Functional and Structural MRI Acquisition
The MRI scan procedure was conducted on an Allegra headdedicated 3T scanner (Siemens, Erlangen, Germany) and included a
T2, echo planar image, and T1-weighted structural magnetization
prepared rapid acquisition gradient-echo (MP-RAGE) scan. See Figure S1 in Supplement 1 for scan parameter details.
Event-Related fMRI Affective Picture Processing Task
During the fMRI scan, participants viewed unpleasant (U), neutral (N), and pleasant (P) photographic pictures (from the IAPS [21];
see Supplement 1). A total of 96 intermixed unpleasant, neutral,
and pleasant photographic pictures were presented.1 E-Prime software (Psychology Software Tools, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) (46)
was used for the design and presentation of all stimuli in the scanner. The 96 pictures were presented twice within their respective
run for a total of 192 picture trials. Each trial was 8 seconds long and
included either 1) the presentation of a picture (for 6 seconds)
followed by a three-choice button press response prompt (for 2
seconds; described in detail below) or 2) a fixation cross (8 seconds).
The presentation of either a picture or fixation cross was semirandomized with the number of consecutive trials varying from one to
six for pictures and one to three for fixation trials. Each run contained 24 unique pictures (8 unpleasant, 8 neutral, 8 pleasant) that
were repeated once (48 picture events) and 16 nonpicture (fixation
cross) events (total ⫽ 64 contiguous trials per run). The total scan
time was 38 minutes and 12 seconds, which was divided into four
runs with 30 seconds before and 31 seconds after each run (30 ⫹
[8 * 64] ⫹ 31 ⫽ 573 seconds; four runs ⫽ 2292 seconds).
We chose predominantly social pictures including faces and
social interactions. Across the four runs, the unpleasant and pleasant pictures were matched based on the picture ratings from the
1
On half of the novel (initial) and repeated picture presentations, participants heard a brief static noise burst (50-msec duration, 105 dB) through
headphones, which they were instructed to ignore. A subset of the
fixation trials also contained the noise burst to ensure unpredictability
across trial types. The rationale for presenting the noise burst during the
scan was so that the fMRI paradigm closely resembled our psychophysiological paradigm involving affective startle eyeblink, which is conducted outside the scanner.
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450 BIOL PSYCHIATRY 2012;72:448 – 456
E.A. Hazlett et al.
Table 1. Demographics for Healthy Control, Borderline Personality, and Schizotypal Personality Disorder Groups
Healthy Control Subjects
(n ⫽ 32)
BPD Patients
(n ⫽ 33)
SPD Patients
(n ⫽ 28)
Characteristic
Mean
SD
Range
Mean
SD
Range
Mean
SD
Range
t Value
Age (Years)
Educationa
Sex
Male
Female
Handedness
Right
Left
Both
Symptom Severityb
Past MDDc
32.8
4.53
n
12
20
n
29
2
1
—
n
—
n
—
—
9.7
2.78
%
38%
62%
%
91%
6%
3%
—
%
—
%
—
—
22–57
1–9
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
31.6
3.85
n
13
20
n
29
4
0
7.77
n
21
n
16
17d
9.1
2.29
%
39%
61%
%
88%
12%
0%
1.26
%
64%
%
48%
52%
18–51
1–8
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
5.5–10
—
—
—
—
—
35.9
4.0
n
16
12
n
24
3
1
7.27
n
6
n
23
5e
11.0
2.05
%
57%
43%
%
86%
11%
3%
1.15
%
21%
%
82%
18%
20–55
1–8
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
5–10.5
—
—
—
—
—
Age
HC vs. BPD: t(63) ⫽ .52
HC vs. SPD: t(59) ⫽ ⫺1.16
BPD vs. SPD: t(58) ⫽ ⫺1.67
Education
HC vs. BPD: t(63) ⫽ 1.08
HC vs. SPD: t(59) ⫽ ⫺.27
BPD vs. SPD: t(58) ⫽ .83
Sex
HC vs. BPD: t(63) ⫽ .15
HC vs. SPD: t(59) ⫽ 1.53
BPD vs. SPD: t(58) ⫽ 1.38
Handedness
HC vs. BPD: t(63) ⫽ .04
HC vs. SPD: t(59) ⫽ ⫺.46
BPD vs. SPD: t(58) ⫽ ⫺.55
Psychoactive Medications
Never medicated
Previously medicated
p Value
.61
.25
.10
.28
.79
.41
.88
.13
.17
.97
.65
.58
All diagnoses were made using a structured diagnostic interview conducted by a psychologist using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I (74)
and the Structured Interview for DSM-IV Personality Disorders (75), followed by a consensus meeting. Only BPD (kappa ⫽ .82) and SPD (kappa ⫽ .73) patients
without diagnostic comorbidity were included (i.e., BPD patients without SPD traits and SPD patients without BPD traits). Exclusion criteria for all participants
included severe medical or neurological illness, head injury, and any prior substance dependence or substance abuse during the past 6 months. Healthy
control subjects (100%) and patients (90%) were recruited through advertisements in local newspapers and the remaining patients (10%) from psychiatric
outpatient clinic referrals at Mount Sinai Hospital. All participants had a negative urine toxicology screen for drugs of abuse, and women had a negative
pregnancy test on scan day.
BPD, borderline personality disorder; fMRI, functional magnetic resonance imaging; GED, General Educational Development Test; HC, healthy control
participants; MDD, major depressive disorder; SD, standard deviation; SPD, schizotypal personality disorder.
a
Education ⫽ highest degree earned: 1 ⫽ no high school diploma; 2 ⫽ GED; 3 ⫽ high school diploma; 4 ⫽ technical training; 5 ⫽ some college, no degree;
6 ⫽ associate degree; 7 ⫽ bachelor’s degree; 8 ⫽ master’s degree; 9 ⫽ MD/PhD/JD/PharmD.
b
Symptom severity: For each patient, each of the DSM-IV criteria for each personality disorder was rated on a 4-point scale (0 ⫽ absent, .5 ⫽ somewhat
present, 1.0 ⫽ definitely present/prototypic, 2.0 ⫽ severe, pervasive). As required for a DSM-IV diagnosis of BPD, these patients met at least five of the nine
DSM-IV criteria with a rating of 1.0. BPD patients were allowed no more than three SPD criteria with two items rated as 1.0 and one item rated as .5. As required
for a DSM-IV diagnosis of SPD, these patients met at least five of the nine SPD criteria. SPD patients were allowed no more than three BPD criteria with two
items rated as 1.0 and one item rated as .5 to control for comorbidity and/or traits. To quantify the level of clinical symptom severity, we added up the
individual symptom ratings for each diagnostic criterion.
c
MDD ⫽ past major depressive disorder was defined as prior episode occurring ⬎ 2 months from the time of fMRI scan.
d
Of the 17 BPD patients who previously received psychoactive medications, 14 received antidepressants, 2 received antipsychotics, 2 received benzodiazepines, 3 received stimulants, and 2 received mood stabilizers.
e
Of the five SPD patients who previously received psychoactive medications, one received an antipsychotic, five received antidepressants, and two
received stimulants.
standardized IAPS manual for arousal (all p ⬎ .28) and for valence.
They were equally divergent from neutral. The neutral pictures
were matched across each of the four runs on arousal and valence.
All participants viewed the same stimulus sequence.
Participants were instructed to attend to the pictures and think
about their meaning for them personally. Immediately following
the offset of each picture, a cartoon-like picture of a right hand with
the pointer finger labeled as pleasant, middle finger labeled as
neutral, and the ring finger labeled as unpleasant appeared for 2
seconds. As soon as participants saw the hand prompt, they made a
three-choice response with their right hand using a BrainLogics
fiber optic button system (Psychology Software Tools, Inc., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). The responses following each picture were
recorded on a desktop computer and helped to ensure that participants were continuously engaged in the task. Immediately following the scan, participants viewed the same 96 pictures again outside the magnet on a laptop and rated them using the SelfAssessment Manikin scale (9-point scale) (47).
Image Processing
We conducted two kinds of event-related analyses of the functional imaging data: 1) BOLD response time-series analysis based
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on hand-traced amygdala region of interest; and 2) a standard
whole-brain general linear model analysis using FSL.
For both approaches, the FSL fMRI Expert Analysis Tool (39) was
used for image processing. The BOLD data were preprocessed with
motion correction using MCFLIRT(48), nonbrain removal using
Brain Extraction Tool (49), spatial smoothing (full-width at half maximum ⫽ 5 mm), and a high-pass temporal filter (cutoff ⫽ 70 seconds). The MP-RAGE and echo planar images were co-registered
with a 7 degrees of freedom linear transformation followed by
alignment to the Montreal Neurological Institute brain template
using a 12 degrees of freedom linear fit.
Amygdala Delineation and Region of Interest Analysis
For each participant, we traced the amygdala volume on anterior commissure-posterior commissure positioned structural/MPRAGE images using our published methods (Figure S1 in Supplement 1). Following the co-registration, we obtained the mean BOLD
response time-series values (1 to 11 with each 3-second epoch
beginning at picture onset and continuing to 33 seconds; 11 ⫻ 3 ⫽
33 seconds) for the fMRI hemodynamic response curves averaged
across the voxels within each hemisphere of the amygdala region of
interest for each of the key stimulus conditions (novel/unpleasant/
E.A. Hazlett et al.
BIOL PSYCHIATRY 2012;72:448 – 456 451
startle, novel/unpleasant/no startle, repeated/unpleasant/startle,
repeated/unpleasant/no startle, novel/pleasant/startle, novel/
pleasant/no startle, repeated/pleasant/startle, repeated/pleasant/no startle, novel/neutral/startle, novel/neutral/no startle, repeated/neutral/startle, repeated/neutral/no startle) averaged
across all runs. We have previously published (50) our methods for
using a similar time series approach for the BOLD response.
We conducted a group (HC vs. BPD vs. SPD) ⫻ picture type (U, N,
P) ⫻ picture repetition (novel, repeated) ⫻ startle stimulus (startle
presented 4000 msec following picture onset, no startle stimulus) ⫻
hemisphere (left, right) ⫻ time (1 to 11: 3 seconds, 6, 9ѧ33 seconds
following picture onset) multivariate analysis of variance using Statistica (StatSoft, Tulsa, Oklahoma) (51). Diagnostic group was the
between-group factor and the remaining factors were all repeated
measures. We report multivariate F values (Wilks’ lambda) or univariate F with Huynh-Feldt adjusted p values. Significant effects with
group were followed-up using Fisher’s least significant difference
tests (shown in figures).
To limit the number of exploratory clinical correlations, Pearson
correlation coefficients were calculated between BOLD activation
(area under the curve) in the amygdala (averaged across hemisphere, startle/no startle, and time) during the repeated unpleasant, neutral, and pleasant pictures for each patient group.
Standard Whole-Brain General Linear Model Analysis
The whole-brain analysis involved a standard whole-brain general linear model analysis. General linear model analysis was first
carried out on the preprocessed fMRI data for each single subject
with FILM (FMRIB’s Improved Linear Model) with six contrasts set for
unpleasant, neutral, and pleasant pictures at novel presentation
(Time 1) and repeated presentation (Time 2). Next, single-subject
statistics were fed into second-level multi-session, multi-subject
analysis. A between-group t test analysis was performed on the
three separate groups with FLAME (FMRIB’s Local Analysis of Mixed
Effects). The statistical images were thresholded using clusters determined by Z ⬎ 2.0 and a corrected cluster significance threshold
of p ⬍ .05 (52) with a color bar showing p ⬍ .05 (corrected). We also
report the Z score and cluster size for the significant regions (Table
S2 in Supplement 1). For the amygdala clusters, we used the
amygdala mask from the Harvard-Oxford Atlas included in FSL.
Results
Amygdala Activation During Picture Processing
Following picture onset, the BPD patients exhibited an overall
amygdala BOLD response curve (averaged across all repeated measures except time) with a much slower return to baseline compared
with the HC and SPD groups (Figure 1, top). The HCs showed the
smallest amygdala BOLD response peak, while the SPD group
showed the greatest and the BPD patients were intermediate. The
HCs also had the fastest peak latency; SPD patients showed the
slowest; and BPD patients were intermediate, group ⫻ time interaction, F (20,162) ⫽ 1.96, p ⫽ .012, Wilks’. The BPD group showed
the smallest overall peak response in the amygdala during the
novel pictures; yet, they showed the greatest overall peak response
during the repeated pictures, group ⫻ picture repetition (novel,
repeated) ⫻ time interaction, F (20,162) ⫽ 1.73, p ⫽ .033, Wilks’
(Figure 1, bottom).
Averaged across the time factor discussed above, the BPD patients exhibited a normal pattern of overall amygdala activation
during novel pictures but greater amygdala activation during repeated pictures compared with both HCs and SPD patients (Figure
2, top). Interestingly, the SPD group showed an opposite pattern
Figure 1. Top: The amygdala blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) response curve is shown for each of the three groups averaged across all
repeated measures (picture type, repetition, startle/no startle, and hemisphere) except for time (3, 6, 9ѧ33 seconds following picture onset). The
amygdala was hand-traced on each individual study participant’s structural
magnetic resonance (magnetization prepared rapid acquisition gradientecho) image and co-registered to their BOLD functional magnetic resonance
imaging scan. The borderline personality disorder (BPD) patients showed an
amygdala BOLD response curve that peaked later than the healthy control
subjects (HC) and took longer to return to baseline compared with both
healthy control subjects and schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) patients.
This BPD-related pattern of a protracted amygdala response is consistent
with the concept that BPD patients have long-lasting responses to emotional stimuli. The SPD patients showed the longest peak latency and highest peak response in the amygdala, while the control subjects showed the
shortest peak response and lower overall BOLD activation in the amygdala.
As shown, this group ⫻ time interaction was significant. For both graphs, the
significant post hoc Fisher’s least significant difference tests, p ⬍ .05, are
noted and the standard error bars are provided. Bottom: The BPD group
showed a greater overall BOLD response in the amygdala during the repeated pictures compared with both the healthy control subjects and
the SPD patients. In contrast, the SPD group showed a higher peak during
the novel pictures. As shown, this group ⫻ picture repetition (novel, repeated) ⫻ time interaction was significant. B, borderline personality disorder; H, healthy control subjects; S, schizotypal personality disorder.
from BPD with greater amygdala activation during the novel pictures and normal activation during the repeated pictures, group ⫻
picture repetition interaction, F (2,90) ⫽ 4.41, p ⫽ .015.
Of greatest interest, Figure 2, bottom, shows that compared with
HCs and SPD patients, the BPD patients exhibited a pattern of greater
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452 BIOL PSYCHIATRY 2012;72:448 – 456
E.A. Hazlett et al.
None of the BPD patients studied had a current MDD diagnosis.
But to address the issue of whether our findings are related to a
vulnerability to depression rather than BPD per se, we compared
patients with a past history of MDD to those without any history of
MDD. This two-group multivariate analysis of variance failed to
show a main effect of group or any interaction with group indicating these BPD subgroups did not significantly differ from each other
in terms of their amygdala BOLD response pattern (p values ⬎ .41).
Whole-Brain Activation During Picture Processing
The amygdala results revealed in the whole-brain analysis were
very consistent with the results of our primary region of interest
amygdala analysis (Figure 3).
Like the amygdala region of interest analysis, the comparison
between patients with a past history of MDD and those without any
history of MDD failed to reach significance for the whole-brain
analysis.
Figure 2. Top: Overall, the borderline personality disorder (BPD) group
showed greater amygdala activation during the repeated pictures compared with the healthy control (HC) and schizotypal personality disorder
(SPD) groups. In contrast, the SPD group showed greater amygdala activation during the novel picture presentation. As shown, this group ⫻ picture
repetition (novel, repeat) interaction was significant. Significant post hoc
Fisher’s least significant difference tests, p ⬍ .05, and standard error bars are
shown for both graphs. Bottom: For each of the groups, the mean amygdala
blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) response is shown during the novel
and repeated picture presentations for each of the three picture types.
Compared with healthy control subjects and schizotypal personality disorder patients, the borderline personality disorder patients showed an increase in
their mean amygdala response from the novel to the repeated emotional (both
unpleasant and pleasant) pictures. As shown, this group ⫻ picture type (unpleasant, neutral, pleasant) ⫻ picture repetition (novel, repeat) interaction was
significant.
amygdala BOLD activation to the emotional (both unpleasant and
pleasant) but not the neutral pictures when they were repeated. In
striking contrast, the SPD patients showed greater amygdala activation to the neutral pictures when repeated, compared with the HCs
and BPD patients. Healthy control subjects showed greater amygdala
activation than BPD patients to the novel pleasant pictures, while the
BPD group showed greater activation to the repeated pleasant pictures. This complex pattern was significant, group ⫻ picture type (U, N,
P) ⫻ picture repetition (novel, repeat) interaction, F(4,178) ⫽ 3.49, p ⫽
.009, Wilks’. The startle/no startle and hemisphere factors did not interact with group and none of the other interactions with group reached
significance.
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Self-Report Ratings of Picture Valence
During fMRI Session. Compared with HCs, both BPD and SPD
patients showed a blunted response on self-report ratings of emotional picture valence, i.e., rating unpleasant pictures as less unpleasant and pleasant pictures as less pleasant [group ⫻ picture
type interaction, F (4,178) ⫽ 2.76, p ⫽ .049 Huynh-Feldt; Figure 4,
top]. There were no between-group differences for the neutral
picture ratings. Follow-up post hoc tests revealed that both patient
groups showed a pattern of a general blunted response to the
emotional but not the neutral pictures (all p values ⬍ .007).
Post-fMRI Session. The mean self-report valence ratings are
shown in Figure 4, bottom, and, as expected, looked very similar to
the three-point ratings obtained during the fMRI (described above).
Compared with the HC group, both patient groups showed a
blunted response on self-report ratings of the unpleasant pictures.
The BPD patients also showed a blunted response for the pleasant
condition compared with HCs and SPD patients [group ⫻ picture
type interaction, F (4,178) ⫽ 2.44, p ⫽ .049, Huynh-Feldt; follow-up
tests were significant with p values ⬍ .007].
Symptom Correlations
Correlational analyses showed that among the BPD group,
greater amygdala BOLD activation to repeated unpleasant (r ⫽ .36,
p ⫽ .04; r ⫽ .37, p ⫽ .03) and neutral (r ⫽ .39, p ⫽ .03; r ⫽ .40, p ⫽ .02)
pictures was associated with higher aggression and affective lability (measured by the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire and Affective Lability Scale, respectively).
Among both patient groups, greater BOLD activation during the
repeated unpleasant pictures was associated with fewer dissociative symptoms (BPD: r ⫽ ⫺.36, p ⫽ .047; SPD: r ⫽ ⫺.40, p ⫽ .04; see
Figure S2 in Supplement 1). Schizotypal personality disorder patients who showed greater BOLD activation during the repeated
pleasant pictures also showed fewer dissociative symptoms (r ⫽
⫺.43, p ⫽ .03). The Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-11, Affective Intensity Measure, and Childhood Trauma Questionnaire scores were not
correlated with amygdala responses. Spearman’s correlations produced the same pattern of significance.
Discussion
Our study has two novel findings reflecting BPD-related abnormalities in amygdala function. First, BPD patients showed reduced
overall habituation (time series) in terms of their BOLD response
curve returning to baseline following picture onset. That is, averaged across the three picture conditions (unpleasant, neutral, and
pleasant), BPD patients showed a prolonged amygdala response
E.A. Hazlett et al.
BIOL PSYCHIATRY 2012;72:448 – 456 453
Figure 3. Statistical probability maps from FSL (4.1) (39) for the between-group effects in response to unpleasant pictures are shown. The maps are
thresholded at Z ⬎ 2.0 (or p ⬍ .05, corrected) and the color bar shows p ⬍ .05 (corrected). See Table S2 in Supplement 1 for the size and location of the clusters.
(A1,2) These standard parametric mapping results demonstrate increased amygdala activity in schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) patients compared with
healthy control subjects (HCs) (A1) and in the SPD patients compared with borderline personality disorder (BPD) patients (A2) in response to the novel or first
(i.e., time 1) presentation of the unpleasant pictures. (B1,2) With the repeated presentation of unpleasant pictures, the whole-brain analysis showed increased
activity in the right amygdala (region inside the green circle) and left fusiform gyrus (Brodmann area [BA] 37) in the BPD patients compared with the HCs (B1)
and in regions including the bilateral amygdala and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA10) in the SPD patients compared with the HCs (B2). (C1,2)
Between-group effects for (time 2 [repeated] ⫺ time 1 [novel]) differences. Activity was increased in brain areas, including the right fusiform gyrus (BA 37),
anterior cingulate (BA 24), and inferior frontal gyrus (BA 44) in BPD patients compared with HCs (C1). Activity was also increased in BPD compared with SPD
patients in regions including left and right (green circle) amygdala and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA 10) (C2).
compared with the HC and SPD groups. The region of interest time
series showed and the whole-brain analysis confirmed that in
the BPD group, the amygdala was more strongly activated when
the same emotional, but not neutral, pictures were presented the
second time. This pattern is consistent with the concept that BPD
patients exhibit unusually long-lasting reactions to emotional cues
(2,13).
Secondly, BPD patients showed a potentiated amygdala response to emotional pictures when repeated relative to the first
(novel) presentation. In contrast, HCs and SPD patients showed
either the same level of amygdala response or a decrement in
their amygdala response to the repeated emotional pictures,
consistent with a pattern of amygdala habituation or emotional
learning. This BPD pattern of increased amygdala activation to
repeated emotional pictures was not observed in our psychiatric
control group of SPD patients, suggesting it has diagnostic specificity. The potentiated amygdala response to the repeated emotional pictures in BPD indicates an abnormality in a very basic
function that has important evolutionary relevance because it
allows for optimal allocation of information processing resources, away from emotional stimuli not associated with real
threat or reward (29). Our HC finding of similar levels of
amygdala activation to novel and repeated unpleasant pictures
and a pattern of habituation for pleasant pictures is consistent
with other normative studies using the IAPS (e.g., [53]). However,
our HCs showed less difference between novel and repeated
unpleasant pictures than reported in Phan et al. (53). This is likely
due to paradigmatic differences, e.g., we compared novel with
repeated pictures presented within their respective run while
Phan et al. (53) examined differences across early and late runs,
which would likely evince more significant habituation.
To differentiate between an abnormality in general arousal versus valence, the unpleasant and pleasant pictures employed were
matched on high arousal level, yet opposite in valence while the
neutral pictures were low on arousal level. Thus, our finding of
exaggerated and prolonged amygdala response to emotional but
not neutral pictures in BPD is consistent with a general arousal
deficit rather than an abnormal response to unpleasant/negative
stimuli per se. This arousal-deficit interpretation is consistent with
psychophysiological work showing that BPD patients exhibit
greater than normal skin conductance responsivity—a measure of
autonomic arousal—while imagining scripts with highly unpleasant BPD-salient themes (abandonment/rejection), as well as positive themes (36). Future fMRI studies comparing unpleasant stimuli
varying in arousal level (e.g., highly vs. generally unpleasant picwww.sobp.org/journal
454 BIOL PSYCHIATRY 2012;72:448 – 456
E.A. Hazlett et al.
pain perception (e.g., [57]) and our results suggest abnormalities in
amygdala function may play an important role.
Among all patients, those reporting fewer dissociative symptoms showed greater amygdala activation with repeated unpleasant picture viewing, while those reporting more dissociative symptoms showed less amygdala activation. It seems counterintuitive
that patients with greater symptom severity would show more
normal amygdala habituation; yet, this finding suggests that dissociation may serve as a defensive response for coping with unpleasant stimuli. This is consistent with studies showing that BPD patients with low present-state dissociation exhibited larger
amplitude startle responses compared with those with high present-state dissociation (58). Borderline personality disorder patients
with high state-dissociative experiences also show poor emotional
learning evidenced by no increase in self-report valence ratings or a
skin conductance measure of arousal to a conditioned stimulus
(59).
To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine amygdala
function during an emotion paradigm in SPD. Consistent with our
finding that the SPD group showed greater overall amygdala activation averaged across all picture types, prior work shows that
schizophrenia patients demonstrate greater skin conductance reactivity to emotional and neutral films (60). Unlike the BPD patients,
the SPD patients in our study did exhibit habituation of the
amygdala response to repeated emotional pictures. However, they
differed from both HCs and BPD patients by showing a pattern of
greater activation to the repeated compared with novel neutral
pictures. One possibility is that because a key feature of SPD is
paranoid ideation, the patients perceived the neutral pictures as
more threatening. We found a blunted self-report response in SPD
to the unpleasant but not pleasant pictures (nine-point Self-Assessment Manikin scale). This is consistent with work showing that
individuals with high scores on the suspiciousness subscale of the
Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (61) demonstrate reduced
perception of affect in body posture (62).
Figure 4. Group means for the self-report ratings of picture valence are
shown for the pictures viewed in the magnet (top graph) and following the
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) session (bottom graph using
the Self-Assessment Manikin scale [47]). There were no between-group
differences for the neutral picture ratings. Both group ⫻ picture type interactions are significant as shown. Top: During the fMRI session, both the
borderline personality disorder (BPD) and schizotypal personality disorder
(SPD) groups showed blunted (i.e., rated unpleasant and pleasant as more
neutral) self-report ratings of the emotional pictures compared with healthy
control subjects. Asterisks denote significant differences from the healthy
control subjects (follow-up Fisher’s least significant difference tests), all p
values ⬍ .007. Bottom: Similarly, the post-fMRI session self-report ratings
show that compared with the healthy control group, both the BPD and SPD
groups exhibited a blunted response pattern to the unpleasant pictures.
Borderline personality disorder patients also showed a blunted response for
the pleasant pictures compared with healthy control subjects and SPD
patients. Asterisks denote significant differences from the healthy control
subjects (Fisher’s least significant difference tests, all p values ⬍ .007). The
“a” represents BPD ⬎ SPD, p ⫽ .0002. H-F, Huynh-Feldt.
tures) are needed to further understand the neural substrates of
this BPD-related arousal deficit.
The BPD patients exhibited a mismatch between their physiological (overactive amygdala) and subjective experience (blunted self-report response) of emotion. This finding is consistent with prior imaging
(22,26) and affective startle (an amygdala-based psychophysiological
measure) (34) studies showing a disconnect between the subjective
experience of emotion and the physiological response in BPD. A
blunted response to emotional pictures is consistent with prior work
indicating impaired emotion recognition abilities (54-56) and reduced
www.sobp.org/journal
Study Limitations
While this BPD study has clear strengths, including a large sample of unmedicated patients, personality disorder control group of
SPD patients, and gold standard tracing of the amygdala, several
limitations merit comment. There are many ways to examine habituation and we examined only two ways: the neural response to a
repeated picture within the same run to minimize scanner drift
issues that occur across runs and the habituation (time series) of the
BOLD response. Future fMRI research should design experiments to
examine other types of habituation to affective stimuli in BPD. The
current study, our prior affective startle study (34), and other recent
work (36) employed stimuli with primarily social and borderlinesalient contexts (e.g., picture of a man hitting a woman, the word
“alone,” scripts describing scenes of abandonment) and found significant normal-BPD differences. However, it is unclear whether
HC-BPD group differences would be observed using nonsocial
stimuli. An experimental manipulation of social versus nonsocial
stimulus content in BPD would be useful.
No significant differences in brain activation were observed between BPD patients with and without a past history of MDD, suggesting that our results are not related to the vulnerability to depression. It will be important to replicate this finding in a larger
sample. Recent work indicates that compared with HCs, MDD patients show greater amygdala responses to masked sad faces but
smaller responses to happy faces (63), suggesting a MDD-related
trait-like bias toward excessive processing of unpleasant stimuli. In
contrast to MDD, our findings indicate that BPD patients show
E.A. Hazlett et al.
excessive amygdala activation to both unpleasant and pleasant
pictures, consistent with a general arousal deficit.
Summary and Possible Implications
We provide evidence that BPD patients exhibit an exaggerated
amygdala response when exposed to repeated emotional pictures
and a blunted subjective experience of emotion. This finding may
have important clinical implications for the type of treatment—
specifically, therapies that focus on developing the skill to recognize one’s own emotional responses—that might be particularly
helpful in BPD. The concept that there is a deficit in mentalization in
BPD has long been recognized by clinicians developing psychotherapeutic treatment for BPD (64). In fact, the psychotherapies that
have been empirically demonstrated to be most effective in BPD
focus on learning the skill of recognizing one’s own emotions, including mentalization-based therapy (65,66) and dialectical behavior therapy (67-70).
Our findings also have implications for pharmacotherapy treatment, given evidence from animal models demonstrating the possibility of altering emotional memories via disruption of reconsolidation at the level of the amygdala (71). There is some evidence that
glucocorticoids directly facilitate extinction learning based on their
actions in potentiating effects of the glutamatergic N-methyl-Daspartate receptors in the amygdala (72,73). Future work in this area
has direct implications for the treatment of BPD, with excellent
potential to further refine diagnostic specificity, provide new targets for therapeutic interventions, and glean a useful biological
predictor of treatment response in BPD.
This research was supported by National Institute of Mental Health
Grant R01MH073911 to EAH and Grant UL1RR029887 from the National Center for Research Resources, National Institutes of Health.
We thank Dr. Monte Buchsbaum for use of the Multi-Image-Processing-Software used to trace the amygdala on structural magnetic
resonance imaging scans and Dr. Jin Fan for assisting with the E-prime
program for the functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment.
The authors report no biomedical financial interests or potential
conflicts of interest.
Supplementary material cited in this article is available online.
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