Grant: Project Grant

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious psychiatric condition that is very common. Many patients with BPD intentionally hurt themselves by cutting their skin with blades or knives. This self-harming behavior, which is called non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) when there is no intent to die, is thought to reduce stress levels in BPD and may also occur, because individuals with BPD are less sensitive to pain. Some research suggests that the brain opioid system may be dysfunctional in BPD. We propose to study the opioid system and NSSI in BPD by measuring brain levels of the nociceptin/orphanin FQ peptide (NOP) opioid receptor using positron emission tomography, a brain scanning technique. We will be studying participants with BPD who engage in NSSI (BPD+NSSI), BPD patients who do not self-harm (BPD-NSSI), and healthy controls who have no history of NSSI. Each participant will undergo one PET scan. We believe that brain opioid levels will be lower in BPD+NSSI, because this group shows the least sensitivity to pain. These results would offer one explanation for better understanding the role of opioid functioning in NSSI and BPD. Furthermore, these data could also provide the impetus to develop new opioid-based treatments that might prevent NSSI.