Cognitive memory control in borderline personality disorder patients

It has been demonstrated that the mechanism of cognitive memory control in humans is sustained by the hippocampus and prefrontal cortices, which have been found to be structurally and functionally abnormal in borderline personality disorder (BPD). We investigated whether the memory control mechanism...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological medicine 2009-05, Vol.39 (5), p.845-853
Main Authors: Sala, M., Caverzasi, E., Marraffini, E., De Vidovich, G., Lazzaretti, M., d'Allio, G., Isola, M., Balestrieri, M., D'Angelo, E., Thyrion, F. Zappoli, Scagnelli, P., Barale, F., Brambilla, P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Biological and medical sciences
Borderline personality disorder
Borderline Personality Disorder - diagnosis
Borderline Personality Disorder - physiopathology
Borderline Personality Disorder - psychology
Child Abuse - psychology
Control
Emotions
Female
Hippocampus
Hippocampus - physiopathology
Humans
Male
Medical sciences
Memory
Mental Recall - physiology
Nerve Net - physiopathology
Neuropsychological Tests
Paired-Associate Learning - physiology
Personality disorders
Personality Inventory
Practice (Psychology)
Prefrontal Cortex - physiopathology
Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Repression, Psychology
Retrieval
stress
Suppressed
Trauma
Young Adult
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:It has been demonstrated that the mechanism of cognitive memory control in humans is sustained by the hippocampus and prefrontal cortices, which have been found to be structurally and functionally abnormal in borderline personality disorder (BPD). We investigated whether the memory control mechanism is affected in BPD. Nineteen Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)-IV BPD patients and 19 matched healthy controls (HC) performed a specific think/no-think paradigm exploring the capacity of remembering and suppressing pair of words previously learned. After the think-no think phase, the second member of each word pair has to be remembered either when subjects are presented with the cue word showed at the beginning of the test (Same Probe Test; SPT) or when they are presented with an extra-list categorical word (Independent Probe Test; IPT). We evaluated the effect of suppression and of retrieval activity on later retention of words. Both on the SPT and on the IPT, HC showed the expected improvement of memory retrieval on to-be-remembered words, unlike BPD patients. On the SPT, HC, but not BPD patients, correctly recalled significantly more words among remembered words (RW) than among suppressed words (SW). Similarly to HC, subjects with BPD without a history of childhood abuse showed a significantly higher percentage of correctly recalled words among RW than among SW. The mechanism of active retrieval of memories and of improvement through repetition is impaired in BPD, particularly in those who experienced traumatic experiences. This impairment might play an important role, possibly resulting in the emergence of unwanted memories and dissociative symptoms.
ISSN:0033-2917
1469-8978
DOI:10.1017/S0033291708004145