A neuroimaging study of functional connectivity during an emotion regulation task in major depressive disorder and borderline personality disorder

V. DE LA PEÑA ARTEAGA; T. STEWARD; M. BERRUGA-SÁNCHEZ; X. GOLDBERG; I. MARTÍNEZ-ZALCAÍN; A. WAINSZTEIN; R. ALVAREZ MERCÉ; V. CAMACHO; M. VULCANO; C. ABULAFIA; D. VIGO; M. VILLARREAL; N. CARDONER; C. NEMEROFF; M.N. CASTRO; J.M. MENCHÓN; S. GUINJOAN; C. SORIANO-MAS

Congreso; 32nd ECNP Congress; 2019

Background: One common denominator to the clinical phenotypes of borderline personality disorder (BPD) and majordepressive disorder (MDD) is dysfunctional emotion regulation. Although these two conditions have been studied extensively in separate, it is not clear whether emotion regulation impairments are underpinned by shared neurobiological correlates. In the case of BPD, emotion regulationdeficits relate to impulsivity, whereas MDD patients exhibitmore frequent use of maladaptive strategies when regulating affect [1] and [2].Methods: In the present study, we investigated the neuralcorrelates of negative emotion regulation in a sample ofBPD patients (n=19), MDD patients (n=20) and healthy controls (HC; n=19). Emotion regulation was assessed using anestablished functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)paradigm using negative images and in-scanner behavioralarousal ratings. Participants were instructed: to ?maintain?the negative emotion elicited by viewing negative images,to ?regulate? the negative feelings triggered by the imagesusing previously trained cognitive reappraisal techniques, orto passively ?observe? neutral images. Self-reported emotion regulation difficulties were assessed via the EmotionRegulation Questionnaire (ERQ) and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). In imaging analyses, significance threshold was set at p