Visual perspective taking neural processing in forensic cases with high density EEG

TL;DR

This study uses EEG to compare brain activity in men with borderline personality disorder and healthy controls during a visual perspective task.

Contribution

The study reveals altered neural activation patterns and reduced beta oscillations in BDL-COM patients during mentalistic tasks.

Findings

BDL-COM patients showed late and diffuse right hemisphere activation compared to controls.

BDL-COM patients had lower EEG activity in key brain regions when adopting self or other-perspectives.

Reduced beta oscillation power was observed in BDL-COM patients during mentalistic tasks.

Abstract

This EEG study aims at dissecting the differences in the activation of neural generators between borderline personality disorder patients with court-ordered measures (BDL-COM) and healthy controls in visual perspective taking. We focused on the distinction between mentalizing (Avatar) and non-mentalizing (Arrow) stimuli as well as self versus other-perspective in the dot perspective task (dPT) in a sample of 15 BDL-COM cases and 54 controls, all of male gender. BDL-COM patients showed a late and diffuse right hemisphere involvement of neural generators contrasting with the occipitofrontal topography observed in controls. For Avatars only and compared to controls, the adoption of Self perspective involved a lower EEG activity in the left inferior frontal, right middle temporal cortex and insula in BDL-COM patients prior to 80 ms post-stimulus. When taking the Other-perspective, BDL-COM patients also showed a lower activation of superior frontal, right inferior temporal and fusiform cortex within the same time frame. The beta oscillation power was significantly lower in BDL-COM patients than controls between 400 and 1300 ms post stimulus in the Avatar-Other condition. These results indicate that BDL-COM patients display both altered topography of EEG activation patterns and reduced abilities to mobilize beta oscillations during the treatment of mentalistic stimuli in dPT.

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