Reduction of rejection-related emotions by transcranial direct current stimulation over right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex in borderline personality disorder: A double-blind randomized pilot study
Abstract
Aims: Borderline personality disorder (BPD) patients show negative emotional reactions to both excluding and including social scenarios, with levels normalizing only during extreme inclusion. Prior research among healthy individuals highlights the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (rVLPFC) role in regulating emotional responses to social exclusion, since transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of rVLPFC decreases rejection-related emotions following social exclusion. This pilot study investigated whether, in BPD patients, tDCS over the rVLPFC reduces rejection-related emotions not only after social exclusion but also after fair social inclusion.
Methods: Forty BPD patients randomly received either real or sham tDCS on rVLPFC before participating in the Cyberball paradigm, which involved phases of inclusion, exclusion, and over-inclusion. Participants self-reported their level of rejection-related emotions following each phase.
Results: Transcranial direct current stimulation reduced rejection-related emotions during both social exclusion and fair inclusion, but not during over-inclusion. Specifically, those in the Real tDCS group exhibited comparable emotional responses to fair and over-including scenarios, unlike those in the Sham group who experienced heightened rejection-related emotions during fair inclusion compared to over-inclusion.
Conclusions: Transcranial direct current stimulation over the rVLPFC reduces BPD patients' tendency to feel rejected both in…
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Evidence Hub reads this as a randomized trial, done in people. Its evidence level is 2 of 5 (High · randomized trial). Randomized trials of a reasonable size are the strongest single-study design.
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