Psychophysiology and Emotion Regulation in BPD

描述（由申请人提供）：拟议的研究验证了Linehan（1993）的理论，即边缘型人格障碍（BPD）是一种普遍的情绪失调障碍。Linehan将情绪失调定义为对各种情境下的情绪刺激的高敏感性和强烈反应。在这项研究中，呼吸性窦性心律失常（RSA）、皮肤电导（SC）和自我报告的生理测量将用于调查BPD个体是否通过在多种情绪和多种环境中表现出更高的情绪反应来显示普遍情绪失调的迹象。参与者将参与一项与个人相关的录音带任务（情境1），在其中他们将听到一段他们感到害怕、愤怒、悲伤和没有情绪的时间的描述，以及一项标准化的任务（情境2），他们将观看标准化的恐惧、愤怒、悲伤和中性的电影。据预测，与正常对照相比，BPD和GAD患者在基线时将表现出情绪敏感的迹象。当暴露于个人相关和标准化的恐惧诱导时，预测BPD和GAD组与正常对照组相比会表现出更高的情绪反应。然而，当暴露于个人相关和标准化的愤怒和悲伤诱导时，预计BPD组将比GAD组和正常对照组表现出更高的情绪反应，从而表明普遍情绪失调的证据。本研究首次在自我报告的基础上使用交感和副交感（即迷走神经张力）生理测量来研究BPD的情绪失调。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed research tests Linehan's (1993) theory that Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a disorder of pervasive emotion dysregulation. Linehan defines emotion dysregulation as high sensitivity and intense responding to emotional stimuli across various contexts. In this study, physiological measures of respiratory sinus arrhvthmia (RSA), skin conductance (SC), and self-report will be used to investigate if BPD individuals show indications of pervasive emotion dysregulation by exhibiting heightened emotional responses across multiple emotions and multiple contexts. Participants will engage m a personally-relevant audiotape task (context 1) in which they will hear a description of a time when they felt afraid, angry, sad, and no emotion, and a standardized task (context 2) where they view standardized fear, anger, sad, and neutral films. It is predicted that, at baseline, BPD and GAD patients will show indications of emotional sensitivity compared with normal controls. When exposed to the personally-relevant and standardized fear inductions, it is predicted that the BPD and GAD groups will exhibit increased emotional responding compared to normal controls. However, when exposed to the personally-relevant and standardized anger and sadness inductions, it is expected that the BPD group will exhibit higher emotional responding than both GAD and normal control groups, thus indicating evidence of pervasive emotion dysregulation This study is the first to study emotion dysregulation in BPD using both sympathetic and parasympathic (i.e., vagal tone) physiological measures in addition to self-report.