Pretreatment cognitive performance is associated with differential self-harm outcomes in 6 v. 12-months of dialectical behavior therapy for borderline personality disorder.

BACKGROUND: Recent findings suggest that brief dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) for borderline personality disorder is effective for reducing self-harm, but it remains unknown which patients are likely to improve in brief v. 12 months of DBT. Research is needed to identify patient characteristics that moderate outcomes. Here, we characterized changes in cognition across brief DBT (DBT-6) v. a standard 12-month course (DBT-12) and examined whether cognition predicted self-harm outcomes in each arm. METHODS: In this secondary analysis of 240 participants in the FASTER study (NCT02387736), cognitive measures were administered at pre-treatment, after 6 months, and at 12 months. Self-harm was assessed from pre-treatment to 2-year follow-up. Multilevel models characterized changes in cognition across treatment. Generalized estimating equations examined whether pre-treatment cognitive performance predicted self-harm outcomes in each arm. RESULTS: Cognitive performance improved in both arms after 6 months of treatment, with no between-arm differences at 12-months. Pre-treatment inhibitory control was associated with different self-harm outcomes in DBT-6 v. DBT-12. For participants with average inhibitory control, self-harm outcomes were significantly better when assigned to DBT-12, relative to DBT-6, at 9-18 months after initiating treatment. In contrast, participants with poor inhibitory control showed better self-harm outcomes when assigned to brief DBT-6 v. DBT-12, at 12-24 months after initiating treatment. CONCLUSIONS: This work represents an initial step toward an improved understanding of patient profiles that are best suited to briefer v. standard 12 months of DBT, but observed effects should be replicated in a waitlist-controlled study to confirm that they were treatment-specific.

Dimensional personality impairment is associated with disruptions in intrinsic intralimbic functional connectivity.

BACKGROUND: Recently proposed alternative dimensional models of personality disorder (PD) place the severity of impairments in self and interpersonal functioning at the core of personality pathology. However, associations of these impairments with disturbances in social, cognitive, and affective brain networks remain uninvestigated. METHODS: The present study examined patterns of resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) in a sample of 74 age- and sex-matched participants (45 inpatients with PD and 29 healthy controls). At a minimum, PD patients carried a diagnosis of borderline PD, although the majority of the sample had one or more additional PDs. rsFC patterns in the following networks were compared between groups and in association with dimensional personality impairments: default mode network (DMN)/core mentalization, frontolimbic, salience, and central executive. Further, the extent to which variation in rsFC was explained by levels of personality impairment as compared to typology-specific borderline PD symptom severity was explored. RESULTS: Relative to controls, the PD group showed disruptions in rsFC within the DMN/core mentalization and frontolimbic networks. Among PD patients, greater severity of dimensional self-interpersonal impairment was associated with stronger intralimbic rsFC. In contrast, severity of borderline PD-specific typology was not associated with any rsFC patterns. CONCLUSIONS: Disruptions in core mentalization and affective networks are present in PD. Higher intralimbic functional connectivity may underlie self-interpersonal personality impairment in PD regardless of diagnostic typology-specific PD symptoms, providing initial neurobiological evidence supporting alternative dimensional conceptualizations of personality pathology.

Interpersonal traits and the neural representations of cognitive control in the prefrontal cortex.

Adaptive interpersonal functioning relies on the effectiveness of behavioral and neural systems involved in cognitive control. Whether different subcomponents of cognitive control and their neural representations are associated with distinctive interpersonal dispositions has yet to be determined. The present study investigated the relationships between prefrontal cortex (PFC) activation associated with two subcomponents of cognitive control and individual differences in interpersonally relevant traits and facets within the Five-Factor Model of personality. Undergraduate participants (n = 237) provided self-ratings of interpersonal traits and underwent functional near-infrared spectroscopy to measure activation in regions-of-interest linked to subcomponents of cognitive control: the right lateral PFC and its involvement in response selection and inhibition/suppression (RS) during a go/no-go task, and the left lateral PFC associated with goal selection, updating, representation, and maintenance (GS) on a tower planning task. Multilevel models revealed that during both RS and GS, Neuroticism and Extraversion were associated with lower and higher levels of activation, respectively. Higher Agreeableness was related to lower activation during RS but also with greater activation during GS. More narrowly defined interpersonal facets subsumed within the broader trait domains were differentially associated with RS- and GS-related neural responses. Taken together, these findings highlight potential avenues of future research to better understand the ways in which the neural processes that subserve cognitive control may underlie interpersonal dispositions.

Clinical, personality, and neurodevelopmental phenotypes in borderline personality disorder: a family study.

BACKGROUND: Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by a heterogeneous clinical phenotype that emerges from interactions among genetic, biological, neurodevelopmental, and psychosocial factors. In the present family study, we evaluated the familial aggregation of key clinical, personality, and neurodevelopmental phenotypes in probands with BPD (n = 103), first-degree biological relatives (n = 74; 43% without a history of psychiatric disorder), and non-psychiatric controls (n = 99). METHODS: Participants were assessed on DSM-IV psychiatric diagnoses, symptom dimensions of emotion dysregulation and impulsivity, 'big five' personality traits, and neurodevelopmental characteristics, as part of a larger family study on neurocognitive, biological, and genetic markers in BPD. RESULTS: The most common psychiatric diagnoses in probands and relatives were major depression, substance use disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorders, and avoidant personality disorder. There was evidence of familial aggregation for specific dimensions of impulsivity and emotion dysregulation, and the big five traits neuroticism and conscientiousness. Both probands and relatives reported an elevated neurodevelopmental history of attentional and behavioral difficulties. CONCLUSIONS: These results support the validity of negative affectivity- and impulse-spectrum phenotypes associated with BPD and its familial risk. Further research is needed to investigate the aggregation of neurocognitive, neural and genetic factors in families with BPD and their associations with core phenotypes underlying the disorder.

The NIMH Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) Initiative and Its Implications for Research on Personality Disorder.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: We discuss the implications of the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) initiative for neuroscience research on personality disorder (PD). To organize our review, we construct a preliminary conceptual mapping of PD symptom criteria onto RDoC constructs. We then highlight recent neuroscience research, often built around concepts that correspond to RDoC elements, and discuss the findings in reference to the constructs we consider most pertinent to PD. RECENT FINDINGS: PD symptoms were strongly conceptually tied to RDoC constructs within the Social Processes domain, implicating brain systems involved in interpersonal rejection, facial emotion perception, and self-referential processes. Negative and Positive Valence Systems were conceptually associated with many PD symptoms, with particular relevance ascribed to the latter's Reward Valuation construct, which could reflect a more widespread disruption of computational processes involved in estimating the probability and benefits of a future outcome. Within the Cognitive Systems domain, the Cognitive Control construct mainly related to PD symptoms associated with impulse control, suggesting a connection to neural circuits that underlie goal selection and behavioral control. Arousal and Regulatory Systems could only be conceptually mapped onto PD symptoms through the Arousal construct, with different symptoms reflecting either a higher or lower biological sensitivity to internal and external stimuli. The RDoC framework has promise to advance neuroscience research on PD. The Social Processes domain is especially relevant to PD, although constructs falling within the other RDoC domains could also yield important insights into the neurobiology of PD and its connections with other forms of psychopathology. Identifying RDoC constructs (e.g., habit formation) that subserve more fundamental processes relevant to personality functioning warrants further investigation.

Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies in Borderline Personality Disorder: Diagnostic Comparisons and Associations with Potentially Harmful Behaviors.

BACKGROUND: Although difficulties in emotion regulation (ER) are considered a core feature of borderline personality disorder (BPD), the specific strategies that individuals with BPD most commonly use, their diagnostic specificity, and their associations with harmful behaviors have not been firmly established. SAMPLING AND METHODS: Individuals with BPD (n = 30), mixed anxiety and/or depressive disorders (MAD; n = 30), and healthy controls (HC; n = 32) completed questionnaires assessing both cognitive ER strategies (e.g., cognitive reappraisal) and potentially harmful behaviors that individuals might use to regulate their emotions (e.g., self-injury). RESULTS: BPD subjects endorsed more maladaptive cognitive ER strategies and fewer adaptive strategies compared to HC. Compared to MAD subjects, BPD individuals endorsed more maladaptive cognitive ER strategies, but only when those with subthreshold symptoms in the MAD group were excluded. BPD also endorsed engaging in potentially harmful behaviors more often than both HC and MAD. Discriminant analysis revealed that MAD endorsed lower rates of problem-solving and cognitive reappraisal compared to both HC and BPD. Higher maladaptive and lower adaptive ER strategies were associated with higher rates of potentially harmful behaviors, although the specific strategies differed for MAD versus BPD. CONCLUSIONS: BPD and MAD endorse cognitive ER strategies with a comparable frequency, although BPD subjects engage in potentially harmful behaviors more often. Subthreshold BPD symptoms may also affect rates of ER strategy use in individuals with other mental disorders.

Slowing down and taking a second look: Inhibitory deficits associated with binge eating are not food-specific.

Poor inhibitory control may contribute to the maintenance of binge eating (BE) among overweight and obese individuals. However, it is unknown whether deficits are general or specific to food (versus other attractive non-food stimuli), or whether observed deficits are attributable to increased depressive symptoms in BE groups. In the current study, we hypothesized that individuals with BE would display inhibitory control deficits, with more pronounced deficits occurring when food stimuli were used. Overweight or obese participants with (n = 25) and without (n = 65) BE completed a Stop Signal Task (SST) with distinct task blocks featuring food-specific stimuli, positive non-food stimuli, or neutral stimuli. The BE group exhibited poorer inhibitory control across SST stimuli types (p = .003, ηp(2)=.10), but deficits did not differ by stimuli type (p = .68, ηp(2) < .01). Including depression as a covariate did not significantly alter results. Results suggest individuals with BE display inhibitory control deficits compared to controls; however, deficits do not appear to be specific to stimuli type. Furthermore, inhibitory control deficits do not appear to be associated with mood disturbance in the BE group. Replication and further research is needed to guide treatment targets.

Decision-making conflict and the neural efficiency hypothesis of intelligence: a functional near-infrared spectroscopy investigation.

Research on the neural efficiency hypothesis of intelligence (NEH) has revealed that the brains of more intelligent individuals consume less energy when performing easy cognitive tasks but more energy when engaged in difficult mental operations. However, previous studies testing the NEH have relied on cognitive tasks that closely resemble psychometric tests of intelligence, potentially confounding efficiency during intelligence-test performance with neural efficiency per se. The present study sought to provide a novel test of the NEH by examining patterns of prefrontal activity while participants completed an experimental paradigm that is qualitatively distinct from the contents of psychometric tests of intelligence. Specifically, participants completed a personal decision-making task (e.g., which occupation would you prefer, dancer or chemist?) in which they made a series of forced choices according to their subjective preferences. The degree of decisional conflict (i.e., choice difficulty) between the available response options was manipulated on the basis of participants' unique preference ratings for the target stimuli, which were obtained prior to scanning. Evoked oxygenation of the prefrontal cortex was measured using 16-channel continuous-wave functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Consistent with the NEH, intelligence predicted decreased activation of the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) during low-conflict situations and increased activation of the right-IFG during high-conflict situations. This pattern of right-IFG activity among more intelligent individuals was complemented by faster reaction times in high-conflict situations. These results provide new support for the NEH and suggest that the neural efficiency of more intelligent individuals generalizes to the performance of cognitive tasks that are distinct from intelligence tests.

Do executive functioning deficits underpin binge eating disorder? A comparison of overweight women with and without binge eating pathology.

OBJECTIVE: Deficits in executive function (EF)-including inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, decision-making, and working memory-may be risk or maintenance factors for binge eating disorder (BED). However, there is mixed evidence regarding EF deficits in individuals with BED. Significant methodological weaknesses (e.g., use of a single EF measure, omission of relevant covariates) in the current literature represent one reason for lack of consensus. METHOD: This study compared EF in a sample of overweight women with (n = 31) and without (n = 43) full or subthreshold BED, with the aim of conducting a multifaceted investigation of the neurocognitive profile of BED. A neuropsychological battery of EF was administered to all participants. RESULTS: After controlling for IQ and age, individuals with binge eating displayed significantly poorer performance on tasks of problem-solving and inhibitory control, and displayed higher prioritization of immediate versus delayed rewards, but the two groups did not appear to differ on set-shifting, working memory, and risk taking. Differences in inhibitory control were no longer statistically significant when depressive symptomology was added as a covariate and correction for multiple comparisons was applied. Exploratory analyses indicated that full and sub-threshold BED groups did not differ in EF. DISCUSSION: Results partially support the hypothesis of relative EF deficits in individuals with BED, suggesting that binge eating may be maintained by cognitive factors distinct from those of obesity. Future research should aim to replicate with a larger sample, control for a wider range of psychiatric comorbidities, and examine whether EF deficits predict treatment outcome.

The independent and interacting effects of hedonic hunger and executive function on binge eating.

Poor executive function (EF; pre-frontal cognitive control processes governing goal-directed behavior) and elevated hedonic hunger (i.e., preoccupation with palatable foods in the absence of physiological hunger) are theoretical risk and maintenance factors for binge eating (BE) distinct from general obesity. Recent theoretical models posit that dysregulated behavior such as BE may result from a combination of elevated appetitive drive (e.g., hedonic hunger) and decreased EF (e.g., inhibitory control and delayed discounting). The present study sought to test this model in distinguishing BE from general obesity by examining the independent and interactive associations of EF and hedonic hunger with BE group status (i.e., odds of categorization in BE group versus non-BE group). Treatment-seeking overweight and obese women with BE (n = 31) and without BE (OW group; n = 43) were assessed on measures of hedonic hunger and EF (inhibitory control and delay discounting). Elevated hedonic hunger increased the likelihood of categorization in the BE group, regardless of EF. When hedonic hunger was low, poor EF increased the likelihood of categorization in the BE group. Results indicate that the interplay of increased appetitive drives and decreased cognitive function may distinguish BE from overweight/obesity. Future longitudinal investigations of the combinatory effect of hedonic hunger and EF in increasing risk for developing BE are warranted, and may inform future treatment development to target these factors.

Differentiating functions of the lateral and medial prefrontal cortex in motor response inhibition.

The right inferior frontal gyrus is generally considered a critical region for motor response inhibition. Recent studies, however, suggest that the role of this cortical area in response inhibition may be overstated and that the contributions of other aspects of the prefrontal cortex are often overlooked. The current study used optical imaging to identify regions of the prefrontal cortex beyond the right inferior frontal gyrus which may serve to support motor response inhibition. Forty-three right-handed healthy adults completed a manual Go/No-Go task while evoked oxygenation of the prefrontal cortex was measured using 16-channel functional near-infrared spectroscopy. During motor response inhibition, the right inferior frontal gyrus, and to a lesser extent the homologous contralateral region, showed increased activation relative to a baseline task. Conversely, the medial prefrontal cortex was significantly deactivated, and the extent of reduced activity in this region was associated with fewer errors on the response inhibition task. These findings suggest a more substantial role of the left inferior frontal gyrus in response inhibition and possibly a distinct function of the middle frontal gyrus subserving error detection on manual motor control tasks.

Executive functioning in overweight individuals with and without loss-of-control eating.

OBJECTIVE: The current study sought to examine executive function (EF) in overweight individuals with and without loss-of-control (LOC) eating. METHOD: Eighty overweight and obese individuals entering a behavioural weight loss trial with (n=18) and without (n=62) LOC eating were administered a clinical interview and neuropsychological battery designed to assess self-regulatory control, planning, delayed discounting and working memory. RESULTS: After controlling for age, IQ and depression, individuals with LOC eating performed worse on tasks of planning and self-regulatory control and did not differ in performance on other tasks. DISCUSSION: Results indicate that overweight individuals with LOC eating display relative deficits in EF compared with overweight individuals without LOC eating. Planning and self-regulatory control deficits in particular may contribute to dysregulated eating patterns, increasing susceptibility to LOC episodes. Future research should examine how EF deficits relate to treatment outcome.

DSM-5 suicidal behavior disorder: a systematic review of research on clinical utility, diagnostic boundaries, measures, pathophysiology and interventions.

Background: It has been a decade since Suicidal Behavior Disorder (SBD) was introduced in Section III of the DSM-5 under "Conditions for Further Study". SBD is chiefly characterized by a self-initiated sequence of behaviors believed at the time of initiation to cause one's own death and occurring in the last 24 months. Aims: To systematically review empirical studies on SBD to identify primary research themes and promising future research directions. Method: A search of empirical articles on SBD published between May 2013 and March 2023 was conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Results: Screening of 73 records by two independent raters yielded 14 eligible articles. The primary research themes identified from these articles included clinical utility of SBD to predict future suicide risk, association of SBD with closely related disorders, psychometric properties of SBD measures, pathophysiology of SBD, and the effectiveness of interventions for people with SBD. Conclusion: Understanding of SBD has slowly progressed since its introduction a decade ago and has mainly been applied in research to define study groups displaying suicidal behavior. The clinical utility of SBD for predicting future suicide risk is low and more research is needed to understand measurement of the diagnosis and its distinctiveness from related disorders and other self-harming behaviors.

Borderline personality disorder stigma: Examining the effects of diagnostic disclosure, behavior, and gender as sources of stigma in the general population.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a severe mental disorder characterized by a pervasive pattern of emotional and behavioral dysregulation. Dysfunction and distress may be compounded by stigmatizing beliefs held by members of the community. There is a lack of research focusing on stigmatizing beliefs about BPD held by the general population. This study addressed this gap by examining the relationship between BPD and a variety of stigma domains in a community sample. The current study explored whether (a) stigma is more strongly related to BPD symptomatic behavior or the diagnostic label of BPD, (b) attaching a diagnosis of BPD to symptomatic behavior or nonclinical behavior influences stigma, and (c) the gender of a vignette character influences the stigmatization of BPD. A total of 295 participants read vignettes and completed questionnaires assessing stigma type and intensity. Findings from the current study suggest that stigma is higher for BPD symptomatic behavior than for the diagnosis itself. Attaching a diagnostic label of BPD to BPD symptomatic behavior did not significantly impact the resultant stigma; however, the diagnosis was found to increase stigma for nonclinical behavior. Findings concerning BPD stigma and gender are in line with broader gender stereotypes. Specifically, there was greater pity for women displaying BPD behavior, whereas there was greater anger for men displaying the same behavior. BPD symptomatic behavior vignettes depicting a man also received a higher level of dangerousness and fear. Study limitations and future directions are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Perception and memory-based representations of facial emotions: Associations with personality functioning, affective states and recognition abilities.

Personality traits and affective states are associated with biases in facial emotion perception. However, the precise personality impairments and affective states that underlie these biases remain largely unknown. To investigate how relevant factors influence facial emotion perception and recollection, Experiment 1 employed an image reconstruction approach in which community-dwelling adults (N = 89) rated the similarity of pairs of facial expressions, including those recalled from memory. Subsequently, perception- and memory-based expression representations derived from such ratings were assessed across participants and related to measures of personality impairment, state affect, and visual recognition abilities. Impairment in self-direction and level of positive affect accounted for the largest components of individual variability in perception and memory representations, respectively. Additionally, individual differences in these representations were impacted by face recognition ability. In Experiment 2, adult participants (N = 81) rated facial image reconstructions derived in Experiment 1, revealing that individual variability was associated with specific visual face properties, such as expressiveness, representation accuracy, and positivity/negativity. These findings highlight and clarify the influence of personality, affective state, and recognition abilities on individual differences in the perception and recollection of facial expressions.

Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation to acutely reduce emotional vulnerability and improve emotional regulation in borderline personality disorder (tVNS-BPD): study protocol for a randomized, single-blind, sham-controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is considered a disorder of emotion regulation resulting from the expression of a biologically determined emotional vulnerability (that is, heightened sensitivity to emotion, increased emotional intensity/reactivity, and a slow return to emotional baseline) combined with exposure to invalidating environments. Vagal tone has been associated with activity in cortical regions involved in emotion regulation and a lower resting state of vagal tone has been observed in BPD patients relative to healthy controls. Non-invasive transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) has been shown to reduce temper outbursts in adults with Prader-Willi Syndrome, to enhance recognition of emotions in healthy students, and to improve depressive and anxiety symptoms. Furthermore, a single session of taVNS has been shown to acutely alter the recognition of facial expressions of negative valence in adolescents with MDD and increase emotion recognition in controls. However, the effect of taVNS on emotional vulnerability and regulation in individuals diagnosed with BPD has not been investigated. Our aims are to determine if taVNS is effective in acutely reducing emotional vulnerability and improve emotional regulation in BPD patients. METHODS: Forty-two patients will be randomized to a single session of taVNS or sham-taVNS while going through an affect induction procedure. It will consist of the presentation of one neutral and three negative affect-evoking 4-min-long videos in sequence, each of which is followed by a 4-min post-induction period during which participants will rate the quality and intensity of their current self-reported emotions (post-induction ratings) and the perceived effectiveness in managing their emotions during the video presentation. The rating of the current self-reported emotions will be repeated after every post-induction period (recovery ratings). Mixed models with individuals as random effect will be used to investigate the ratings at each stage of the study, taking into account the repeated measures of the same individuals at baseline, pre-induction, post-induction, and recovery. DISCUSSION: The study has potential to yield new insights into the role of vagal tone in emotion dysregulation in BPD and offer preliminary data on the effectiveness of taVNS as a possible non-invasive brain stimulation to treat a core symptom of BPD. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05892900. Retrospectively registered on Jun 07, 2023.

Suicide risk detection using artificial intelligence: the promise of creating a benchmark dataset for research on the detection of suicide risk.

Suicide is a leading cause of death that demands cross-disciplinary research efforts to develop and deploy suicide risk screening tools. Such tools, partly informed by influential suicide theories, can help identify individuals at the greatest risk of suicide and should be able to predict the transition from suicidal thoughts to suicide attempts. Advances in artificial intelligence have revolutionized the development of suicide screening tools and suicide risk detection systems. Thus, various types of AI systems, including text-based systems, have been proposed to identify individuals at risk of suicide. Although these systems have shown acceptable performance, most of them have not incorporated suicide theories in their design. Furthermore, directly applying suicide theories may be difficult because of the diversity and complexity of these theories. To address these challenges, we propose an approach to develop speech- and language-based suicide risk detection systems. We highlight the promise of establishing a benchmark textual and vocal dataset using a standardized speech and language assessment procedure, and research designs that distinguish between the risk factors for suicide attempt above and beyond those for suicidal ideation alone. The benchmark dataset could be used to develop trustworthy machine learning or deep learning-based suicide risk detection systems, ultimately constructing a foundation for vocal and textual-based suicide risk detection systems.

Improving treatment outcomes for borderline personality disorder: what can we learn from biomarker studies of psychotherapy?

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a severe and common psychiatric disorder and though evidence-based psychotherapies are effective, rates of treatment nonresponse are as high as 50%. Treatment studies may benefit from interdisciplinary approaches from neuroscience and genetics research that could generate novel insights into treatment mechanisms and tailoring interventions to the individual. RECENT FINDINGS: We provide a timely update to the small but growing body of literature investigating neurobiological and epigenetic changes and using biomarkers to predict outcomes from evidence-based psychotherapies for BPD. Using a rapid review methodology, we identified eight new studies, updating our earlier 2018 systematic review. Across all studies, neuroimaging ( n  = 18) and genetics studies ( n  = 4) provide data from 735 participants diagnosed with BPD (mean sample size across studies = 33.4, range 2-115). SUMMARY: We report further evidence for psychotherapy-related alterations of neural activation and connectivity in regions and networks relating to executive control, emotion regulation, and self/interpersonal functioning in BPD. Emerging evidence also shows epigenetic changes following treatment. Future large-scale multisite studies may help to delineate multilevel treatment targets to inform intervention design, selection, and monitoring for the individual patient via integration of knowledge generated through clinical, neuroscience, and genetics research.

An exploratory study of functional brain activation underlying response inhibition in major depressive disorder and borderline personality disorder.

Cognitive control is associated with impulsive and harmful behaviours, such as substance abuse and suicidal behaviours, as well as major depressive disorder (MDD) and borderline personality disorder (BPD). The association between MDD and BPD is partially explained by shared pathological personality traits, which may be underpinned by aspects of cognitive control, such as response inhibition. The neural basis of response inhibition in MDD and BPD is not fully understood and could illuminate factors that differentiate between the disorders and that underlie individual differences in cross-cutting pathological traits. In this study, we sought to explore the neural correlates of response inhibition in MDD and BPD, as well as the pathological personality trait domains contained in the ICD-11 personality disorder model. We measured functional brain activity underlying response inhibition on a Go/No-Go task using functional magnetic resonance imaging in 55 female participants recruited into three groups: MDD without comorbid BPD (n = 16), MDD and comorbid BPD (n = 18), and controls with neither disorder (n = 21). Whereas response-inhibition-related activation was observed bilaterally in frontoparietal cognitive control regions across groups, there were no group differences in activation or significant associations between activation in regions-of-interest and pathological personality traits. The findings highlight potential shared neurobiological substrates across diagnoses and suggest that the associations between individual differences in neural activation and pathological personality traits may be small in magnitude. Sufficiently powered studies are needed to elucidate the associations between the functional neural correlates of response inhibition and pathological personality trait domains.

Executive functions and behavioral economic demand for cannabis among young adults: Indirect associations with cannabis consumption and cannabis use disorder.

Behavioral economic demand for cannabis is robustly associated with cannabis consumption and cannabis use disorder (CUD). However, few studies have examined the processes underlying individual differences in the relative valuation of cannabis (i.e., demand). This study examined associations between executive functions and cannabis demand among young adults who use cannabis. We also examined indirect associations of executive functions with cannabis consumption and CUD symptoms through cannabis demand. Young adults (N = 113; 58.4% female; mean age 22 years) completed a Marijuana Purchase Task. Participants also completed cognitive tasks assessing executive functions (set shifting, inhibitory control, working memory) and semistructured interviews assessing past 90-day cannabis consumption (number of grams used) and number of CUD symptoms. Poorer inhibitory control was significantly associated with greater Omax (peak expenditure on cannabis) and greater intensity (cannabis consumption at zero cost). Poorer working memory was significantly associated with lower elasticity (sensitivity of consumption to escalating cost). Lower inhibitory control was indirectly associated with greater cannabis consumption and CUD symptoms through greater Omax and intensity, and poorer working memory was indirectly associated with greater cannabis consumption and CUD symptoms through reduced elasticity. This study provides novel evidence that executive functions are associated with individual differences in cannabis demand. Moreover, these results suggest that cannabis demand could be a mechanism linking poorer executive functioning with heavier cannabis use and CUD, which should be confirmed in future longitudinal studies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).