Emotional information-processing in Borderline Personality Disorder: A neurophysiological approach.

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a serious psychiatric disease, one of
the main symptoms is emotional instability. From earlier studies it is known
that BPD-patients are troubled by intense emotions such as anger, feeling
'empty', grief and that these emotions can rapidly change within a short period
of time. Sometimes this is without any mentionable cause, often it is a
reaction on some kind of emotional trigger. So far, few neuro-physiological
studies have examined how BPD- patients respond to emotional stimuli. It is
possible that BPD- patients respond hyper-sensitive to emotional stimuli
compared to control-subjects. Until now, no EEG-studies have examined emotional
information-processing among a population of BPD-patients.

Goal of the study is to gain more scientific knowledge in the area of
Borderline Personality Disorder. This might help to reach a better
understanding of the disorder and could lead to the development of more
effective (pharmacological) treatment methods.

To answer these research questions we chose for a paradigm in which
BPD-patients are compared with healthy control-subjects.
During a EEG-measurement participants are exposed to images with a positive,
negative or neutral theme. Before and after this measurement participants are
asked to fill out several questionnaires. After the measurement an accurate
talk-down will follow. The measurements will be performed by a
research-assistant at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, during the
measurement a therapist from the CCP is present. Patients and control subjects
receive a financial compensation.

Participants are being exposed to a EEG-measurement

No particular health-risks are expected as a result of EEG-measurements. It is
possible that the questionnaires or the exposure to the images causes some
distress among patients. Therefore a accurate talk-down is given after the
measurements and during measurements a psycholigist of the CPP is present. If
needed, patients can consult with an independent physician of the CPP.