Researchers in Australia investigate the growing evidence that childhood trauma predisposes individuals to both bipolar and borderline syndromes, with the intention of examining areas of discrimination between the diagnoses. “No studies have examined the neurobiological underpinnings of both in the same design,” they say, and research comparing bipolar and borderline patients’ self-reports is limited. This paper provides an overview of emotional dysregulation, impulsivity, childhood environment and neurobiology in the context of bipolar and borderline diagnoses. The authors conclude with the question of whether the two belong to the same spectrum. The paper will appear in Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry.
Note from Kermit Cole, “In the News” Editor:
I generally try to play it coy when posting a study, and let the authors speak for themselves and hope the MIA readership picks the study’s bones clean. However Alix and Altostrata’s comments inspired me to be more forthright. What interested me here is that the authors seemed to start out with the intention of differentiating bipolar and borderline, while acknowledging their apparently common connection to childhood trauma. Nevertheless, their conclusion seems to nod to the possibility that all three have “an integrated behavioural, aetiological and neurobiological” provenance.
This has long been my view.