Behavioral Dysinhibition: Impulsivity and Borderline Personality Disorder

Antonia S. New, MD, chaired a symposium on Impulsivity and Behavioral Dysinhibition Across Psychiatric Disorders at the APA Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. She presented data specifically from patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and sought to highlight the neural underpinnings and symptom presentation that might explain similarities and differences in this symptom domain across the spectrum of personality disorders as well as in other disorders associated with impulsive symptoms.

Included in the group were the following lectures:

•Impulsive Behavior in Pathological Gambling
•Searching for Endophenotypes in BPD
•Impulsivity and Intermittent Explosive Disorder
•Assessment of Predictors of High-Risk Mixed-Diagnosis Suicidal Veterans
•ADHD and Impulsivity

In this video, Dr New describes her research on impulsivity in BPD, which shows that while self-reported impulsivity is somewhat high, what is most consistent is impulsive aggressive behavior. BPD emerges in borderline patients in the context of affective storms or interpersonal disagreements with less impulsivity and more impulsive reactivity.

Dr New is Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Director of Medical Student Education in Psychiatry at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. Her research focus is on emotion dysregulation resulting in symptoms such as impulsive aggression and BPD.