We review different conceptions of inhibitory control that may be
relevant to the regulatory problems featured in borderline personality
disorder (BPD). These conceptions have often been framed with regard to
personality traits of inhibitory control, but can also be related to
cognitive measures of response suppression as well as affect regulation.
Reactive behavioral inhibition is relatively unstudied in relation to BPD.
A substantial amount of literature links executive function problems with
BPD, but that literature has not isolated executive response inhibition
nor been controlled for other personality disorder symptoms of
antisociality, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or
depression, anxiety, or posttraumatic symptoms. We therefore conducted a
study of this question looking at BPD symptoms in an adult sample with a
small number of BPD subjects and other disorders. Results indicated that
symptoms of BPD were correlated with response inhibition (measured by stop
signal reaction time) even after controlling for the overlap of stop
inhibition with ADHD, antisociality, and other Axis II disorder symptoms.
We conclude by hypothesizing discrete developmental routes to BPD, based
on different mechanism breakdowns, which would be amenable to empirical
investigation at the cognitive or trait level of analysis.Portions of this work were supported by National
Institute of Mental Health Grant R01-MH63146 (J.N., PI).