Emotion recognition in BPD: effects of attachment anxiety and vagal tone

描述（由申请人提供）：在最痛苦和使人衰弱的精神健康障碍中，边缘型人格障碍（BPD）是一个主要的公共卫生问题。人际关系问题是导致与BPD相关的高痛苦和社会成本的重要因素。与BPD相关的危险行为，如自杀、自残、攻击和药物滥用，通常是由拒绝或亲密关系中的其他困难事件引发的。因此，了解这种障碍中人际关系障碍的原因，对于开发有助于改善BPD所定义的痛苦的治疗方法非常重要。该提案概述了一个专注于浪漫关系中的情感识别及其对人际功能的影响的项目。大量的研究记录了BPD患者在情绪识别方面的异常，但研究结果并不一致。大多数研究都详细说明了BPD患者的情绪识别能力较差。与此同时，相当大的少数研究详细介绍了患有这种疾病的个体增强的情绪识别能力。本研究旨在解决这些差异，同时确定生理指标和依恋对情绪识别的重要性，以及情绪识别困难对人际功能的重要性。之前关于BPD患者情绪识别的研究关注的是在认知能力较低的条件下对陌生人的同理心，而这项提议的任务是在被要求写下亲密关系中被抛弃或被拒绝的经历后，评估恋人的情绪识别。本研究的目的是：1)确定BPD症状与情绪识别困难的关系；2)研究依恋类型和迷走神经张力在BPD症状与情绪识别关系中的中介作用；3)确定情绪识别与人际关系困难的关系。所使用的任务将是一个基本的情绪识别任务，参与者被要求报告所描绘的情绪。加上恋人的照片会提高任务效率。参与者将从以下组中抽样：BPD患者，其他人格障碍患者（OPD）和无人格障碍患者（no- pd）。预期的结果是，对陌生人的情绪识别不会因BPD症状的高低而有所不同，而对恋人的情绪识别则会因BPD症状的减少而增强。另一种假设是依恋焦虑和呼吸性窦性心律失常（RSA）会介导BPD症状与情绪识别之间的关系。最后一个假设是，情绪识别能力差预示着人际关系功能的障碍。在BPD患者中使用恋人来进行情感识别，并研究情绪识别障碍的潜在机制，是研究这种主要以困难的社会关系为特征的疾病的新颖创新和必要步骤。这些知识可用于制定针对这些特定过程的预防和治疗工作。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Among the most painful and debilitating mental health disorders, borderline personality disorder (BPD), is a major public health concern. Interpersonal problems are influential in bringing about the high distress and societal cost associated with BPD. The dangerous behaviors associated with BPD, such as suicidality, self- harm, aggression, and substance abuse, are frequently sparked by rejection or other difficult events in close relationships. Understanding the causes of interpersonal disturbance within the disorder is, thus, important for developing treatments that can help ameliorate the misery defined by BPD. This proposal outlines a project focused on emotion recognition within romantic relationships and its impact on interpersonal functioning. A large number of research studies document abnormalities in emotion recognition among individuals with BPD, but the findings are inconsistent. A majority of studies detail poorer emotion recognition among individuals with BPD. At the same time, a sizeable minority of studies detail enhanced emotion recognition amongst individuals with the disorder. The proposed study is an attempt to resolve these discrepancies, while determining the importance of physiological indices and attachment to emotion recognition and the importance of emotion recognition difficulties to interpersonal functioning. Whereas previous studies of emotion recognition in BPD have focused on empathy for strangers under cognitively cool conditions, the proposed task evaluates emotion recognition for romantic partners after being asked to write about experiences of abandonment or rejection in a close relationship. The aims of this project are as follows: 1) determine the relationship between BPD symptoms and emotion recognition difficulties, 2) examine the role of attachment style and vagal tone as mediators of the relationship between BPD symptoms and emotion recognition, and 3) determine the relationship between emotion recognition and interpersonal difficulties. The task used will be a basic emotion recognition task in which participants are asked to report the emotion pictured. Adding photographs of romantic partners will enhance the task. Participants will be sampled from the following groups: patients with BPD, patients with another personality disorder (OPD) and patients with no personality disorder (no-PD). Expected results are that emotion recognition for strangers will not differ as a function of high and low BPD symptoms, while emotion recognition for romantic partners will be enhanced by fewer BPD symptoms. Another hypothesis is that the relationship between BPD symptoms and emotion recognition will be mediated by attachment anxiety and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). A final hypothesis is that poor emotion recognition will predict disturbance in interpersonal functioning. The use of romantic partners for emotion recognition in BPD, and examining potential mechanisms of disturbed emotion recognition represent novel innovations and needed steps in research on a disorder largely characterized by difficult social relationships. This knowledge can be used to develop prevention and treatment efforts that target these specific processes.