Grant: Operating Grant

People with borderline personality disorder (BPD) suffer from fluctuating mood. BPD has a 2% occurrence in the general population, and is present in approximately 10% of psychiatric outpatient cases, and 20% of psychiatric inpatient cases. The mood can get so extremely unpleasant, that people with this condition often self harm to block out the emotional pain. Almost 70% of people with BPD will have at least one suicide attempt in their lifetime and they are more likely to complete suicide than any individuals with any other psychiatric disorder. MAO-A is a protein that has increased levels in several conditions of sad mood, and we suspect that MAO-A protein is elevated during this state of severely unpleasant mood that happens intermittently in borderline personality disorder. Our pilot imaging data of this state shows the highest levels of MAO-A ever reported (more than 50% in 6 subjects). If this result holds in a larger study, future treatments of borderline personality disorder, when mood is severely unpleasant, should include medications that shut down MAO-A in combination with existing treatments to improve response. People with antisocial personality disorder are predisposed to violent aggression towards others. In addition to influencing mood, MAO-A has a role in the developing brain and healthy people with greater levels of aggression and impulsivity are known to have lower levels of MAO-A in the part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex. We hypothesize that people with antisocial personality disorder who have high levels of aggression and violent behaviour will have even lower levels of MAO-A. If this is true, future work would focus on trying to reduce the environmental factors that lead to low MAO-A as a strategy to reduce risk for antisocial personality disorder.