PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Eli S. Neustadter
AU  - Sarah K. Fineberg
AU  - Jacob Leavitt
AU  - Meagan M. Carr
AU  - Philip R. Corlett
TI  - Induced illusory body ownership in Borderline Personality Disorder
AID  - 10.1101/628131
DP  - 2019 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 628131
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/05/05/628131.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/05/05/628131.full
AB  - Background One aspect of selfhood that may have relevance for Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is variation in sense of body ownership. We employed the rubber hand illusion (RHI) to manipulate sense of body ownership in BPD. We extended previous research on illusory body ownership in BPD by testing: 1) two illusion conditions: asynchronous & synchronous stimulation, 2) relationship between Illusion experience and core BPD symptoms, and 3) relationship between illusion experience maladaptive personality traits.Methods Participants (24 BPD, 21 control) underwent RHI procedures. We measured illusion strength (questionnaire responses), proprioceptive drift (perceived shift in physical hand position), BPD symptoms (DIB-R score), and maladaptive personality traits (PID-5).Results For subjective illusion strength, we found a main effect of group (BPD > HC, F = 11.94 p = 0.001), and condition (synchronous > asynchronous, F(1,43) = 22.80, p < 0.001). There was a group x condition interaction for proprioceptive drift (F(1,43) = 6.48, p = 0.015) such that people with BPD maintained illusion susceptibility in the asynchronous condition. Borderline symptom severity correlated with illusion strength within the BPD group, and this effect was specific to affective symptoms (r = 0.481, p < 0.01). Across all participants, trait psychoticism correlated with illusion strength (r = 0.481, p < 0.01).Conclusion People with BPD are more susceptible to illusory body ownership than are healthy controls. This result is consistent with the robust clinical literature describing aberrant physical and emotional experience of self in BPD. A predictive coding interpretation of these results holds promise to develop testable mechanistic hypotheses for experiences of disrupted bodily self in BPD.