Search

Findings ,indicate that bulimics with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) may represent a distinct subgroup, with extreme psychopathology and unique treatment needs. However, since mood disturbances can produce "borderline" manifestations, findings from available borderline/nonborderline comparisons in bulimic samples could confound features associated with personality disorder (PD) with those associated with mood disturbance. We compared psychiatric and personality features in 91 bulimics, divided (using DSM-III-R criteria) into those with BPD, Other PDs, or No PD, in direct comparisons, cases meeting "border- line" criteria seemed broadly more disturbed than did cases with other Axis-II comorbidity patterns. However, when variance attributable to depression was accounted lot, greater psychopathology in "borderlines" became restricted to focal dimensions, predictably characterizing a "hostile-impulsive" phenotype. While "borderlines" displayed higher prevalences of certain Axis-I syndromes than did "nonborderlines", results did not indicate distinct patterns of comorbidity, on Axis I, across groups. Overall, finding suggested that comorbidity on Axis-Il may predict different degrees of disturbance, rather than fundamental differences as to areas in which disturbance will occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three alternative causal hypotheses have been proposed concerning the relationship between mood and eating disturbances: (1) mood disturbances in eating disorders are consequences of eating abnormalities; (2) eating abnormalities are consequences of underlying mood disturbances; (3) mood and eating disturbances are not causally related but are both effects of some other set of common causes or ‘third variables.’ The present study used a cross-lagged panel design to examine these competing causal hypotheses concerning mood and eating symptoms in a nonclinical population. High-school girls, 543, ranging in age from 13 to 17, were tested twice (across a 6-month interval) for depressive symptoms and eating abnormalities. Autocorrelations indicated that mood and eating disturbances were quite stable over the 6-month period (.71 for mood and .72 for eating). Synchronous correlations revealed a moderate but stable association between mood and eating disturbances (.41 for Time 1 and .42 for Time 2). Comparison of cross-lagged correlations from mood to eating pathology (.34) and from eating to mood disturbances (.35), however, indicated no predominant causal sequence between these two variables. Implications of these findings were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presence of DSM-III-R personality disorders was examined in 67 women with eating disorders (anorexic restricters, anorexic bingers, and bulimics with or without a prior history of anorexia nervosa) and in 25 noneating-disordered women. Additional measures of family functioning were available in 55 of the eating disorders (EDs) and 24 controls. Personality and family disturbances (as measured by the Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire-Revised and the Family Assessment Device) were prevalent among the EDs, but ‘restricter/binger’ differences were not indicated on either measure. Hence results did not support a ‘restricter/binger dichotomy’ concept. They also questioned the degree to which personality problems in ED patients may be consequences of eating disturbances, since severity of personality disorder, while related to reported family dysfunction, was unrelated to severity of eating symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the study was to test the hypothesis that borderline personality disorder (BPD) and its underlying traits are associated with abnormalities in neurotransmitter systems. Subjects were 30 women with BPD and 22 normal controls, assessed using the Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines, revised, the Hamilton Depression Scale (HAM-A) and the Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAM-A), the Diagnostic Assessment of Personality Pathology, the Buss–Durkee Guilt-Hostility Inventory, the Barratt Impulsivity Scale (BIS), and challenge tests to measure serotonergic, cholinergic and noradrenergic activity. Borderline subjects with high HAM-A and HAM-D scores showed a faster time to peak in prolactin response to meta-chlorphenylpiperazine (m-CPP) challenge. Borderline subjects with high BIS scores showed prolactin blunting. There were no differences in cortisol response to m-CPP, or on the cholinergic and noradrenergic challenges. The results suggest that impulsive traits in borderline patients are associated with abnormalities in serotonergic systems. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]