@article{ref1,
title="An eye-tracking study of interpersonal threat sensitivity and adverse childhood experiences in borderline personality disorder",
journal="Borderline personality disorder and emotion dysregulation",
year="2021",
author="Seitz, Katja I. and Kleindienst, Nikolaus and Neukel, Corinne and Bertsch, Katja and Herpertz, Sabine C. and Ueltzhoeffer, Kai and Boll, Sabrina and Hillmann, Karen and Krauch, Marlene and Leitenstorfer, Johanna",
volume="8",
number="1",
pages="e2-e2",
abstract="BACKGROUND: Previous eye-tracking studies provide preliminary evidence for a hypersensitivity to negative, potentially threatening interpersonal cues in  borderline personality disorder (BPD). From an etiological point of view, such  interpersonal threat hypersensitivity might be explained by a biological  vulnerability along with a history of early life adversities. The objective of the  current study was to investigate interpersonal threat hypersensitivity and its  association with adverse childhood experiences (ACE) in patients with BPD employing  eye-tracking technology. <br><br>METHODS: We examined a sample of 46 unmedicated, adult  female patients with BPD and 25 healthy female volunteers, matched on age and  intelligence, with a well-established emotion classification paradigm with angry,  fearful, happy, and neutral facial expressions. ACE were assessed retrospectively  with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. <br><br>RESULTS: Patients as compared to healthy  volunteers reflexively directed their gaze more quickly towards the eyes of  emotional and neutral faces and did not adapt their fixation patterns according to  the facial expression presented. Misclassifying emotional and neutral faces as angry  correlated positively with the patients' self-reported ACE. <br><br>CONCLUSIONS: Building on  and extending earlier findings, our results are likely to suggest a visual  hypervigilance towards the eyes of emotional and neutral facial expressions and a  childhood trauma-related anger bias in patients with BPD. Given the lack of a  clinical control group, the question whether these findings are specific for BPD has  to remain open. Thus, further research is needed to elucidate the specificity of  altered visual attention allocation and the role of ACE in anger recognition in  patients with BPD.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="2051-6673",
doi="10.1186/s40479-020-00141-7",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40479-020-00141-7"
}