Disrupted activation of dot perspective task-related EEG generators in forensic patients with borderline personality disorder
7 affiliations
- 1M/EEG & Neuromod Platform, neuro @campusbiotech, Geneva, Switzerland
- 2Department of Rehabilitation and Geriatrics, Geneva University Hospitals and University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
- 3Division of Institutional Measures, Medical Direction, Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva, Switzerland
- 4Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
- 5Office of Health, Republic and Canton of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
- 6School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
- 7Functional Brain Mapping Laboratory, Fundamental Neuroscience Department, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
Abstract
Altercentric and egocentric biases (AB, EB) refer to the impact of another agent’s/own perspective on the speed with which one can report one’s own/another visual perspective respectively. These biases are known to be affected by illnesses and in particular borderline personality (BPD). Coupling the dot-perspective taking task with high-density EEG recordings at the surface and in the inverse space, we analyzed the regional distribution of neural generators related to AB and EB in healthy controls (n = 24) and forensic BPD male patients (n = 14) making comparisons with previous functional MRI data obtained with the same experimental design. In both controls and BPD cases, AB was associated with early EEG activations of visual association areas. In contrast, EB was related to increased use of neural sources in salience, mentalizing networks and mirror neuron areas bilaterally. In forensic BPD patients, no statistically significant differential activation of neural generators was observed in respect to this variable. Our preliminary findings in a small sample of BPD patients show that unlike fMRI observations that pointed to an AB-related widespread increase of BOLD signal in central executive and mentalizing areas, this was not the case at the level of neural generators. Paralleling previous fMRI data, EB was related to increased need of activation of neural sources in visual association areas and later on in several networks involved in social cognition. Such activation was not observed in forensic BPD cases supporting the hypothesis of a decreased ability of these patients in mobilizing their brain resources when treating the Self-Other discrepancy. However, the limited statistical power and post-hoc group-level interaction analysis point to the need for further confirmatory analyses of these first experimental evidences.
Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-64677-4.
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BibTeX
@article{rochas2026disrupted,
title = {{Disrupted activation of dot perspective task-related EEG generators in forensic patients with borderline personality disorder}},
author = {Vincent Rochas and Marie-Louise Montandon and Cristelle Rodriguez and François R. Herrmann and Ariel Eytan and Alan J. Pegna and Christoph M. Michel and Panteleimon Giannakopoulos},
journal = {Scientific Reports},
year = {2026},
month = jul,
doi = {10.1038/s41598-026-64677-4},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-64677-4},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Disrupted activation of dot perspective task-related EEG generators in forensic patients with borderline personality disorder
AU - Vincent Rochas
AU - Marie-Louise Montandon
AU - Cristelle Rodriguez
AU - François R. Herrmann
AU - Ariel Eytan
AU - Alan J. Pegna
AU - Christoph M. Michel
AU - Panteleimon Giannakopoulos
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/07/29
JO - Scientific Reports
DO - 10.1038/s41598-026-64677-4
UR - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-64677-4
AB - Altercentric and egocentric biases (AB, EB) refer to the impact of another agent’s/own perspective on the speed with which one can report one’s own/another visual perspective respectively. These biases are known to be affected by illnesses and in particular borderline personality (BPD). Coupling the dot-perspective taking task with high-density EEG recordings at the surface and in the inverse space, we analyzed the regional distribution of neural generators related to AB and EB in healthy controls (n = 24) and forensic BPD male patients (n = 14) making comparisons with previous functional MRI data obtained with the same experimental design. In both controls and BPD cases, AB was associated with early EEG activations of visual association areas. In contrast, EB was related to increased use of neural sources in salience, mentalizing networks and mirror neuron areas bilaterally. In forensic BPD patients, no statistically significant differential activation of neural generators was observed in respect to this variable. Our preliminary findings in a small sample of BPD patients show that unlike fMRI observations that pointed to an AB-related widespread increase of BOLD signal in central executive and mentalizing areas, this was not the case at the level of neural generators. Paralleling previous fMRI data, EB was related to increased need of activation of neural sources in visual association areas and later on in several networks involved in social cognition. Such activation was not observed in forensic BPD cases supporting the hypothesis of a decreased ability of these patients in mobilizing their brain resources when treating the Self-Other discrepancy. However, the limited statistical power and post-hoc group-level interaction analysis point to the need for further confirmatory analyses of these first experimental evidences. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-64677-4.
SN - 2045-2322
ER -