Clinical trial NCT06880640: Affect-based Impulsivity in Borderline Personality Disorder
Official title: Affect-based Impulsivity in Borderline Personality Disorder: Developing a Neurocomputational Phenotype
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: RECRUITING
Phase: NA
Conditions: Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)
Healthy Controls Group - Age and Sex-matched
Lead sponsor: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute
First posted: 2025-03-18
Enrollment: 106
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 45
Standard ages: ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: NA
Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE

Brief summary: The purpose of this research study is to investigate how personality traits and neuroendocrine systems relate to decision-making patterns in individuals 18-45 years old. The main question it aims to answer is how neuroendocrine activity impacts decision-making.

Participants will complete online behavioral tasks, a stress induction procedure, self-report surveys, and a cognitive assessment. During the session, psychophysiological measures will be collected, including electrocardiogram (ECG) and cardiac impedance (ICG) to monitor heart rate and blood flow, as well as electrodermal activity (EDA), blood drop samples, and saliva collection to assess nervous system activity.


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) group:

* Score of 38 or higher on Personality Assessment Inventory-Borderline Scale (PAI-BOR)
* Participants in the BPD group will be primarily recruited from the two

DEPENd lab studies that maintain large samples of BPD participants. To ensure maximal similarity between BPD participants recruited from other DEPENd lab studies and BPD participants recruited through other recruitment sources, the investigators will use the same criteria for the BPD group in the current study as the criteria used in the other DEPENd lab studies. BPD participants in the two DEPENd lab studies from which the investigators will be recruiting must meet the following criteria:

1. 3+ BPD symptoms, one of which must be affective instability, per clinical interview
2. Participants must score at least 80 on the Reynolds Intellectual Screening Test (RIST).

Health Control (HC) Group:

* Score of 12 or lower on PAI-BOR
* Score below 50th percentile on World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule (WHODAS)
* Absence of any current or lifetime psychiatric disorder, including personality disorders as determined by diagnostic interviews (SIDP and SCID), if the participant had participated in the lab's other studies (IRB Nos. 20-1735 and 21-0602).

Combined Inclusion Criteria:

* Ages 18-45
* Provision of signed and dated informed consent form
* Stated willingness to comply with all study procedures and lifestyle considerations and availability for the duration of the study
* Willingness to participate in all components of the study
* Participants must be able to speak, understand and read English.
* Participants must have at least 20/40 visual acuity (correct or uncorrected).

Exclusion Criteria:

* Use of as needed antihypertensive agents within 12 hours prior to lab visit
* Inability to refrain from using as needed psychotropic medications for 12 hours prior to lab visit
* History of psychotic disorder, Bipolar I disorder, autism spectrum disorder, reactive attachment disorder, pervasive developmental disorder, motor disorder, head injury, mental retardation, neurological disorder, or current substance dependence
* Family history of Bipolar I disorder in a first degree relative.
* Participants are also excluded for any of the following: cardiac pacemaker, aneurysm clip, cochlear implants, pregnancy, shrapnel, history of metal fragments in eyes, neurostimulators, weight of 250 lbs. or more, or claustrophobia.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Goal-directed decision-making in the Social Decision Tree Task (SDTT)
timeFrame: Collected for 40 minutes ~2 hours into one-time study visit
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Bias toward social actions in the Social Decision Tree Task (SDTT)
timeFrame: Collected for 40 minutes ~2 hours into one-time study visit
Other outcomes:
measure: Change in salivary cortisol
timeFrame: Collected shortly after the participant consents into the study (~20 minutes into the one-time study visit) and 20 minutes after stress induction concludes (~2 hours into one-time study visit)
Locations:
city: Chapel Hill
country: United States
facility: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
state: North Carolina
Study officials:
affiliation: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
name: Michael Hallquist, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Huys QJ, Eshel N, O'Nions E, Sheridan L, Dayan P, Roiser JP. Bonsai trees in your head: how the pavlovian system sculpts goal-directed choices by pruning decision trees. PLoS Comput Biol. 2012;8(3):e1002410. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002410. Epub 2012 Mar 8.