Structural and Functional Connectivity of the Anterior Cingulate Cortex in Patients With Borderline Personality Disorder

Background: Emerging evidences supported the hypothesis that emotional dysregulation results from aberrant connectivity within the fronto-limbic neural networks in patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Considering its important role in emotional regulation, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) has not yet been fully explored in BPD patients. Therefore, using the seed based resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) and probabilistic fiber tracking, we aimed to explore the alterations of functional and structural connectivity of the ACC in patients with BPD. Methods: A cohort of 50 unmedicated, young BPD patients and 54 sex-, age- and education-matched healthy controls (HCs) completed psychological tests and underwent resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and diffuse tensor imaging (DTI) scanning. Rs-functional connectivity (FC) analysis and probabilistic fiber tracking were used to plot ACC structural connectivity (SC) and FC. Results: With the left ACC selected as a seed, BPD patients exhibited increased rsFC and abnormal SC with the right middle frontal gyrus (MFG), and decreased rsFC with the left middle temporal gyrus (MTG), compared with HCs. Additionally, negative cognitive emotion regulation and depressive symptoms both correlated negatively with the rsFC of the left ACC in BPD patients.