Early life adversity modulation of central autonomic network during emotion regulation in Borderline Personality Disorder

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

Virtual

Congreso; Society of Biological Psychiatry's 75th Annual Scientific Conference; 2020

Society of Biological Psychiatry

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. Hence, we aimed to examine the effects of childhood adversity on the CAN and cardiac autonomic control during ER in Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and Healthy Controls (HC).METHODS: Thirty-nine right-handed subjects (HC/20; BPD/19) matched for age and gender, underwent a 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 during ER and ACEs were tested as RMSSD predictors. Difficulties in Emotion Regulation (DERS) were examined as an outcome from autonomic activity. RESULTS: ACEs moderated activity of prefrontal areas (L-IFG/p=0.003; R-IFG/p=0.01; L-MFG/p=0.05), left supplementary-motor-area (L-SMA/p=0.03), left fusiform (p