Involvement of the dorsal striatum in the processing of happy faces in Borderline Personality Disorder

Abstract

Background Emotion dysfunction and anhedonia are main problems in borderline personality disorder (BPD). In the present functional MRI (fMRI) study, we investigated neural activation in the processing of happy faces and its correlates with habitual emotion acceptance in patients with BPD. Methods 22 women with BPD and 26 female healthy controls watched movie clips of happy and neutral faces during fMRI without any instruction of emotion regulation. To associate neural activation with habitual emotion acceptance, we included individual scores of the Emotion Acceptance Questionnaire (EAQ) as a covariate in brain data analysis. Results All participants showed amygdala, temporal and occipital activation in the processing of happy compared to neutral faces. Additionally, healthy controls showed activation of the hippocampus and patients with BPD showed dorso-striatal (caudate, putamen) activation in the happy compared to the neutral condition. Compared with healthy controls, patients with BPD showed significantly more caudate activation. We could not find significant correlations with the EAQ. Conclusions Our results indicate caudate hyperactivation in patients with BPD during the processing of happy faces. Although patients reported significantly less emotion acceptance of positive emotions, an association with neural activation was not detectable.