2. What causes BPD
• Exact cause for BPD is not yet understood
• Seems to be a biopsychosocial picture to it.
• Let’s look at each in turn.
3. Psychosocial
• 87% victim of childhood abuse
– 40-71% sexual abuse
– 25-70% physical abuse
• Leads to confusion
– What’s happening??? Affects thoughts and feelings
– Affects future relationships as discussed earlier
because doesn’t understand the feelings of others
– Dissociated state: emotionless during time of painful
experience of abuse and then causing self harm in
later life.
5. Biological
• Three different theories
– Limbic system: involved in many of our emotions
and motivations, particularly those that are
related to survival. Such emotions include fear,
anger and pleasure
– Frontal lobe (important in affective
responsiveness, social and personality
development and self awareness)
• Orbital prefrontal cortex
• Orbitofrontal cortex
6. Biological
• The Limbic system
– Most primitive part of human brain
– Controls emotions
– Specially amygdala and hippocampus in charge of fear,
rage and automatic reactions
– Both significantly smaller than normal in BPD cases
– ?explanation for:
• Excess anger
• Fear in relationships
• Self mutilation
7. Biological
• The orbital prefrontal cortex (OPFC)
– Important role in inhibiting limbic regions
(involved in control of generating aggression)
– Serotonin controls OPFC activity. If low, means
increased limbic inhibition.
– Also low glucose in this area leading to low
serotonin proposed as a causing factor
8. Biological
• Orbitofrontal cortex
BPD Lesions in Lesions in PFC Normal
OFC but not OFC adults
• Performance and reactions compared with tests
and questionnaires
• First two groups most similar: most
impulsive, more aggressive and less happy but
not identical.
• But BPD cases more neurotic, less extraverted
and less conscientious than the rest.
• Not all traits = same cause
10. • The prefrontal cortex (P.F.C.) is the anterior part of the frontal lobes of the
brain, lying in front of the motor and premotor areas.
• This brain region has been implicated in planning complex cognitive
behavior, personality expression, decision making and moderating social
behavior.[1] The basic activity of this brain region is considered to be
orchestration of thoughts and actions in accordance with internal goals.[2]
• The most typical psychological term for functions carried out by the
prefrontal cortex area is executive function. Executive function relates to
abilities to differentiate among conflicting thoughts, determine good and
bad, better and best, same and different, future consequences of current
activities, working toward a defined goal, prediction of
outcomes, expectation based on actions, and social "control" (the ability
to suppress urges that, if not suppressed, could lead to socially
unacceptable outcomes).
