Child Abuse Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Child Abuse, including details on family violence, examinations, long-term effects, psychiatrics disorders.

Childhood sexual abuse in relation to neurobiological challenge tests in patients with borderline personality disorder and normal controls.

Zweig-Frank H, Paris J, Ng Ying Kin NM, Schwartz G, Steiger H, Vasavan Nair NP

Department of Psychology, Concordia University, Montreal, Québec, Canada.

This study examined whether abnormal responses to neurobiological challenge tests in borderline personality disorder (BPD) are related to a history of childhood sexual abuse (CSA). We compared patients meeting BPD criteria (n=24), with and without histories of CSA, with normal controls (n=12) on the results of challenges with meta-chlorphenylpiperazine (m-CPP), pyridostigmine and clonidine. No differences were found between abused and non-abused patients with BPD. These results do not support the hypothesis that CSA is directly related to neurobiological abnormalities in BPD.

Published 29 March 2006 in Psychiatry Res, 141(3): 337-41.
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