These results provide evidence for exaggerated amygdala responsivity, diminished medial prefrontal cortex responsivity, and a reciprocal relationship between these 2 regions during passive viewing of overtly presented affective stimuli unrelated to trauma in PTSD.

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Introversion/extraversion and neuroticism are 2 important and frequently studied dimensions of human personality. These dimensions describe individual differences in emotional responding across a range of situations and may contribute to a predisposition for psychiatric disorders. Recent neuroimaging research has begun to provide evidence that neuroticism and introversion/extraversion have specific functional and structural neural correlates. Previous studies in healthy adults have reported an association between neuroticism, introversion/extraversion, and the activity of the prefrontal cortex and amygdala. Studies of individuals with psychopathological states have also indicated that anatomic variations in these brain areas may relate to extraversion and neuroticism. The purpose of the present study was to examine selected structural correlates of neuroticism and extraversion in healthy subjects (n = 28) using neuroanatomic measures of the cerebral cortex and amygdala. We observed that the thickness of specific prefrontal cortex regions correlates with measures of extraversion and neuroticism. In contrast, no such correlations were observed for the volume of the amygdala. The results suggest that specific aspects of regional prefrontal anatomy are associated with specific personality traits.

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Although sex differences have been demonstrated in behavioral paradigms of fear conditioning, the findings have been inconsistent, and fear extinction has been little studied. The present study investigated the influence of sex and menstrual cycle phase on the recall of fear extinction. Three groups of healthy adult participants were studied: women at 2 different phases of the menstrual cycle (early follicular [early cycle] and late follicular [midcycle]) and men. Participants underwent a 2-day fear conditioning and extinction protocol. The paradigm entailed habituation, fear conditioning, and extinction learning on Day 1 and extinction recall and fear renewal on Day 2. Skin conductance served as the dependent variable. During fear acquisition on Day 1, men showed significantly larger conditioned responses relative to women; early cycle and midcycle women did not differ. No significant group differences were found during extinction learning. On Day 2, men and early cycle women expressed greater extinction memory than midcycle women. These data confirm sex differences in conditioned fear acquisition and suggest that midcycle hormones attenuate extinction recall.

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Background It is clinically important to understand the factors that increase the likelihood of the frequent and recurrent suicide attempts seen in those with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Although a number of studies have examined this subject in a cross-sectional manner, the goal of this study was to determine the most clinically relevant baseline and time-varying predictors of suicide attempts over 16 years of prospective follow-up among patients with BPD. Methods Two-hundred and ninety inpatients meeting Revised Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines (DIB-R) and DSM-III-R criteria for BPD were assessed during their index admission using a series of semistructured interviews and self-report measures. These subjects were then reassessed using the same instruments every two years. The generalized estimating equations (GEE) approach was to model the odds of suicide attempts in longitudinal analyses, controlling for assessment period, yielding an odds ratio and 95% confidence interval for each predictor. Results Nineteen variables were found to be significant bivariate predictors of suicide attempts. Eight of these, seven of which were time-varying, remained significant in multivariate analyses: diagnosis of major depression, substance use disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, presence of self-harm, adult sexual assault, having a caretaker who has completed suicide, affective instability, and more severe dissociation. Conclusions The results of this study suggest that prediction of suicide attempts among borderline patients is complex, involving co-occurring disorders, co-occurring symptoms of BPD (self-harm, affective reactivity, and dissociation), adult adversity, and a family history of completed suicide.