Reduced amygdala and hippocampus size in trauma-exposed women with borderline personality disorder and without posttraumatic stress disorder

Background Individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) display reduced hippocampus size and impaired cognition. However, studies on individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) are rare, and studies on trauma-exposed patients with BPD but without PTSD are lacking. Methods Twenty-four trauma-exposed women with BPD (10 with PTSD and 14 without) and 25 healthy controls underwent 3-dimensional structural magnetic resonance imaging of the amygdala and hippocampus and a clinical and neuropsychological investigation. Results Compared with controls, patients with BPD and PTSD displayed significantly reduced amygdala (34%) and hippocampus (12%) size and significantly impaired cognition. Trauma-exposed patients with BPD but without PTSD also showed significantly reduced amygdala (22%) and hippocampus (11%) size but normal cognition. Amygdala and hippocampus size did not differ significantly between patients with and without PTSD. Limitations The sample sizes of trauma-exposed groups are relatively small. A larger sample size may have revealed statistically significant differences in amygdala size between those with and without PTSD. Conclusion Our results demonstrate strong amygdala size reduction in trauma-exposed patients with BPD with or without PTSD, much exceeding that reported for trauma-exposed individuals without BPD. Our data suggest that BPD is associated with small amygdala size. Furthermore, evidence is increasing that amygdala and hippocampus size reduction is not only due to PTSD, but also to traumatic exposure

Reduced glucose metabolism in temporo-parietal cortices of women with borderline personality disorder

(c) 2005 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved

Behandlung im System: Eine kritische Perspektive auf Normierungspraktiken der Versorgung Gewalterfahrener

Stern AW, Kraugmann I, Fahrig L, Wirth HE. Behandlung im System: Eine kritische Perspektive auf Normierungspraktiken der Versorgung Gewalterfahrener. In: Sack M, Sachsse U, Schellong J, eds. Komplexe Traumafolgestörungen. Diagnostik und Behandlung von Folgen schwerer Gewalt und Vernachlässigung. 2nd ed. Stuttgart: Schattauer; 2022: 696-707

Mimikveränderungen während einer Traumatherapie

Background: Clinicians frequently describe changes in facial affective behavior during the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). An increase in facial affective behavior is seen in association with a reduction of numbing symptoms. Objective: The purpose of this exploratory study was to demonstrate the changes in facial affective behavior (especially negative affects) during inpatient eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) treatment and to examine to what extent these changes correspond to shifts in symptom severity. Material and methods: Facial affective behavior was coded during therapeutic sessions for 16 patients who were chronically traumatized during their youth, using the facial action coding system (FACS) for 3 time points, before, during and 1 year after treatment with EMDR. Data of the impact of event scale revised (IES-R), the symptom checklist (SCL-90-R), Beck depression inventory (BDI-V) and a questionnaire for dissociative symptoms (FDS) was documented for 16 female patients with a mean age of 39 years (SD = ±10). Results and conclusion: There was a significant change in facial affective behavior during and after treatment (χ2(2) = 5.73, p = 0.030). Total facial affective behavior and the expression of negative affect significantly increased 1 year after therapy; however, there were no significant correlations between the change of facial affective behavior during EMDR treatment and relevant outcome variables. Further research will show if monitoring facial affective behavior is useful to assess therapeutic success, especially with respect to social interactions

Photography in the Third Reich

This lucid and comprehensive collection of essays by an international group of scholars constitutes a photo-historical survey of select photographers who embraced National Socialism during the Third Reich. These photographers developed and implemented physiognomic and ethnographic photography, and, through a Selbstgleichschaltung (a self-co-ordination with the regime), continued to practice as photographers throughout the twelve years of the Third Reich. The volume explores, through photographic reproductions and accompanying analysis, diverse aspects of photography during the Third Reich, ranging from the influence of Modernism, the qualitative effect of propaganda photography, and the utilisation of technology such as colour film, to the photograph as ideological metaphor. With an emphasis on the idealised representation of the German body and the role of physiognomy within this representation, the book examines how select photographers created and developed a visual myth of the ’master race’ and its antitheses under the auspices of the Nationalist Socialist state. Photography in the Third Reich approaches its historical source photographs as material culture, examining their production, construction and proliferation. This detailed and informative text will be a valuable resource not only to historians studying the Third Reich, but to scholars and students of film, history of art, politics, media studies, cultural studies and holocaust studies. As with all Open Book publications, this entire book is available to read for free on the publisher’s website. Printed and digital editions, together with supplementary digital material, can also be found at www.openbookpublishers.co

Schriften zur sozialen Therapie. - Bd. 4. Aktuelle Beiträge II

Layoutgetreuer Scan der Ausgabe von 1991

Egocentric virtual maze learning in adult survivors of childhood abuse with dissociative disorders: Evidence from functional magnetic resonance imaging

Present neuroimaging findings suggest two subtypes of trauma response, one characterized predominantly by hyperarousal and intrusions, and the other primarily by dissociative symptoms. The neural underpinnings of these two subtypes need to be better defined. Fourteen women with childhood abuse and the current diagnosis of dissociative amnesia or dissociative identity disorder but without posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and 14 matched healthy comparison subjects underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while finding their way in a virtual maze. The virtual maze presented a first-person view (egocentric), lacked any topographical landmarks and could be learned only by using egocentric navigation strategies. Participants with dissociative disorders (DD) were not impaired in learning the virtual maze when compared with controls, and showed a similar, although weaker, pattern of activity changes during egocentric learning when compared with controls. Stronger dissociative disorder severity of participants with DD was related to better virtual maze performance, and to stronger activity increase within the cingulate gyrus and the precuneus. Our results add to the present knowledge of preserved attentional and visuospatial mnemonic functioning in individuals with DD