Alterations in Social Reward Processing in Young Adults with Borderline Personality Disorder and Non-Suicidal Self-Injury
Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is increasingly prevalent among young adults in both clinical and non-clinical settings, becoming a growing public health concern. While a prominent symptom of borderline personality disorder (BPD), NSSI also occurs independently of BPD.
Importantly, NSSI often occurs in the context of social rejection, suggesting that potential alterations in the processing of social rewards and social punishments could be involved in NSSI. However, no previous study has specifically examined the role of social reward processing in NSSI in young adults with and without BPD. Methods: To address this, we recruited a clinical group of 31 women with BPD and recurrent NSSI (NSSI+BPD group), a subclinical group of 25 women with recurrent NSSI but with no other disorder (NSSI group), and a healthy control group of 33 women with no history of NSSI or any other disorder (HC group). The three groups were matched by gender and age. While undergoing fMRI, participants completed a novel, ecologically valid version of the Social Incentive Delay (SID) task, where they responded as fast as possible to a target to receive positive or avoid negative comments about their own or about others’ Instagram photos. Results: Preliminary whole-brain analyses of the fMRI data indicate that when processing social rewards vs social punishments, the NSSI and NSSI+BPD groups showed reduced neural responses in the bilateral nucleus accumbens (NAcc), the right medial frontal cortex (MFC), and the left caudate, compared to the HC group. In addition, responses in the left NAcc and the right MFC negatively correlated with borderline symptom severity in the NSSI+BPD group. Conclusion: Findings identify alterations in social reward processing that may contribute to NSSI and clinical severity in young adults with and without BPD, and they provide implications for clinical practice.
ZOOM LINK: https://ub-edu.zoom.us/j/93653350780