Magnetic Resonance Imaging Volumes of the Hippocampus and the Amygdala in Women With Borderline Personality Disorder and Early Traumatization

Abstract

RESEARCH IN animals has revealed a substantial impact of stress on regions of the brain that are rich in type II glucocorticoid receptors, ie, highly binding mineralocorticoid-like receptors.^1,2 In animals under inescapable and uncontrollable psychosocial stress, functional^3-5 and structural neural disturbances up to neural death were found.^6-8 Similar changes were observed after artificial glucocorticoid exposition of the brain.⁹ Many of these findings refer to the hippocampus and, in agreement with these observations, memory dysfunctions were found in animals that were exposed to stressful conditions.