Cortical Plasticity of the Tactile Mirror System in Borderline Personality Disorder

Brief Summary

People with borderline personality disorder (BPD) show alterations in the empathic abilities, which may involve the functioning of the mirror neuron system in the somatosensory domain. In the so-called Tactile Mirror System, the observation of a touch on someone else's body activates a cortical network also involved in tactile perception, including the primary somatosensory cortex. While alterations of mirror-like systems have been suggested in BPD, plasticity mechanisms within these systems are underexplored. The present study aims to shed light on the possible neurophysiological alterations within the Tactile Mirror System in people with BPD, employing a non-invasive transcranial magnetic stimulation protocol, called cross-modal paired associative stimulation (cm-PAS), to induce brain plasticity.