Research progress in behavioral paradigms on the symptoms of borderline personality disorder

Abstract

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a type of personality disorder characterized by unstable emotion, self-consciousness and interpersonal relationships. Despite its high comorbidity with other mental disorders, interventions targeting BPD symptoms may aid in the treatment of the comorbid disorders, which makes BPD one of the most investigated personality disorders. Previously, BPD symptom features were mainly measured by standard scales, but the results of these scales would easily be affected by subjectivity or social desirability. One way to address this limitation is the application of behavioral paradigms, which can measure both explicit and implicit patterns of BPD patients in relatively true-to-life scenes more accurately and objectively. This article discusses behavioral paradigms related to four principal symptoms of BPD: interpersonal instability, emotional instability, identity disturbance and impulsivity, compares the differences in the results of these paradigms, and proposes possible directions for future BPD behavioral research, in order to achieve the enlargement of application of these paradigms. Combined with psychological, physical and pharmacal intervention, or other measurements such as functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), eye tracking technology, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) or event-related potential (ERP), these paradigms would be able to uncover the inner cognitive and behavioral patterns of BPD patients, and improve the knowledge and understanding of researchers and mental health practitioners regarding BPD.

Keywords

• borderline personality disorder (bpd)
• behavioral paradigm
• emotion
• interpersonal relationship
• self-conscious
• impulsivity