Early Life Adversity Modulation of Central Autonomic Network During Emotion Regulation in Borderline Personality Disorder

AGUSTINA WAINSZTEIN; MARIANA N. CASTRO; XIMENA GOLDBERG; CAMACHO VICENTE; ALVAREZ MERCÉ ROCÍO; VULCANO MERCEDES; CAROLINA ABULAFIA; MIRTA F. VILLARREAL; DANIEL VIGO; CHARLES NEMEROFF; NARCIS CARDONER; CARLES SORIANO-MAS; SALVADOR M. GUINJOAN

Congreso; 75th Annual Scientific Convention and Meeting SOBP; 2020

Background: Early life adversity has immediate and lifelong effects on brain development and emotional behavior. The Central Autonomic Network (CAN) comprises brain regions that command emotion regulation (ER) processes. Cardiac vagal tone has been studied as a psychophysiological index of self-regulatory mechanisms. We examined the effects of childhood adversity on CAN and cardiac autonomic control during ER in Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and HealthyControls (HC). Methods: Thirty-nine right-handed subjects (HC/20; BPD/19) matched for age and gender, underwent cognitive reappraisal task. 3T-GE-MRI with simultaneous BIOPAC-HRV acquisition was implemented. Whole-brain-BOLD-signal analysis of interaction with Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) was performed. Cardiac vagal tone (RMSSD) was calculated duringER. ACEs were tested as RMSSD predictors. Difficulties in Emotion Regulation (DERS) were examined as autonomic activity outcome. Results: ACEs moderated activity of prefrontal areas (L-IFG/ p¼0.003; R-IFG/p¼0.01; L-FMO/p¼0.05), bilateral lingual and fusiform regions (p