Specialized psychotherapy associated with alterations in brain activity in borderline personality disorder

New research from Binghamton University (NY, USA) has highlighted the potential physiological effects of transference-focused psychotherapy (TFP). The findings were published recently in Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences. The pilot study comprised a cohort of ten female patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) recruited from New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical College (NY, USA). The subjects were treated for 1 year with TFP – a treatment proven to reduce symptoms in BPD. Utilizing a disorder-specific emotional–linguistic functional MRI method for measuring treatment-related effects on the brain, researchers observed relative activation increases in cognitive control areas and relative decreases in areas associated...