Psychophysiological stress response and memory in borderline personality disorder

European Journal of Psychotraumatology

Babette Renneberg¹  Juliane Fleischer²  Moritz Duesenberg²  Katja Wingenfeld²  Valentina Elias²  Sophie Metz²  Stefan Roepke²  Christian Otte²  Oliver T. Wolf³ 

[1] Freie Universität Berlin;Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Berlin Institute of Health, Klinik für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie, Campus Benjamin Franklin;Ruhr University Bochum;

关键词: borderline personality disorder;    stress;    cortisol;    alpha-amylase;    memory;   

DOI  :  10.1080/20008198.2019.1568134

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Background: Previously, we found that patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) but not healthy controls (HC) showed improved memory retrieval after hydrocortisone administration. Objective: In this study, we examined whether increases in endogenous cortisol after psychosocial stress are associated with memory function in patients with BPD and in healthy individuals. Methods: We recruited 49 female patients with BPD and 49 female HC. All participants were exposed to a psychosocial stressor, the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) and a control condition (Placebo (P-)TSST) in randomized order. Salivary cortisol, alpha amylase (sAA) and blood pressure were measured in response to stress. Subsequently, we examined free recall of a previously learned word list, autobiographical memory, and working memory. Results: We found a stress*time*group interaction effect for the cortisol response and for sAA to stress, which is mainly triggered by a slightly different increase in cortisol between groups from pre to post TSST. Furthermore, BPD patients showed a less pronounced increase in diastolic blood pressure compared to HC after stress. There was no effect of stress on memory performance in any tests, either in healthy controls or in patients with BPD. Conclusion: Our results suggest a slightly blunted response of the HPA axis and the sympathetic nervous system to stress in BPD compared to healthy women. In contrast to hydrocortisone administration, psychosocial stress did not improve memory retrieval in BPD patients. This might be explained by lower cortisol concentrations and parallel increases in norepinephrine and negative affect after stress.

【 授权许可】

Unknown