Borderline Personality Disorder
Awards- From the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Jim Breiling, Ph.D.
National Institute of Mental Health
6101 Executive Blvd., Room 6-179
Bethesda, MD 20892-9651
(Express or Courier Service: Rockville, MD 20852)
E-mail: jbreilin@mail.nih.gov
Awards
June 23, 2004
Janine Flory, a very able and productive junior investigator, and a
participant in the New Directions in Borderline Personality II meeting at
the University of Minnesota, will soon be the official recipient of a very
competitive and prestigious NIMH K (research career development) award. A
summary description of her K grant is provided below. Janine will also be
a most welcome participant in NIMH's international think tank for the more
effective treatment of borderline personality disorder. Thanks to Paul
Pilkonis and Larry Siever and colleagues for helping to bring Jamie to the
ranks of NIMH funded bpd researchers. -- Jim Breiling
1 K01 MH69979-01A1 FLORY, JANINE D
Endophenotypes for Borderline Personality Disorder
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This Mentored Research Scientist Development Award (K01) application is designed to reorient the applicant's
research career from behavioral medicine to psychiatric genetics with a
focus on Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). BPD is a complex phenotype
characterized by affective instability, impaired social relationships and
impulsivity. Progress in understanding the neurogenetics of BPD has been
slowed by the fact that the disorder is clinically heterogeneous and likely
shows complex inheritance, influenced by the interaction of multiple genetic
and environmental factors. These conditions suggest that classic genetic
approaches, such as standard affected/unaffected linkage analysis and
candidate gene studies, are unlikely to be the optimal approaches for identifying genetic factors associated with the disorder. Reeonceptualizing
the categorical disorder into more specific, dimensional phenotypes (i.e.,
intermediate phenotypes) that are putatively closer to the neuropathology of
the disorder might increase the likelihood of identifying genetic factors.
Impulsivity and impulsive aggression have been identified as core features
of the disorder. This application proposes to evaluate impulsivity as a
model intermediate phenotype for BPD using a variety of measures (e.g.,
clinical interview, self-report, behavior in laboratory tasks) administered
to a large sample of adults who are not selected for BPD; and to people who
meet DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for BPD. Siblings of BPD probands and matched controls will also complete self-report measures of impulsivity,
aggression, and affective instability. The candidate will complete didactic
training in genetic epidemiology/psychiatric genetics and the research plan
will be conducted in the context of funded, ongoing research programs at
Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the University of Pittsburgh. This
research will evaluate whether the structure of impulsivity is similar in
normative and patient samples and which aspects of impulsivity (e.g.,
nonplanning, novelty seeking) are associated with aggression and behavioral
task performance in the normative sample and in people with BPD. This work
will also examine familial aggregation of impulsivity, aggression and affective instability in preparation for submission of a collaborative R01
application to conduct joint linkage analysis of BPD and BPD endophenotypes
in extended pedigrees.
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