# PSYCHOBIOLOGY OF SUICIDAL BEHAVIOR IN BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH · 2020 · $674,216

## Abstract

This competitive renewal proposal extends and enriches our longitudinal investigation of suicidal behavior in
borderline personality disorder (BPD), focusing specifically on medically serious suicidal acts. Our work to
date points to the central role of a socio-emotional diathesis to suicide in BPD. In this cohort of patients with
BPD ascertained over the previous 15+ years (and other related studies of suicide), we have found that (i)
negative affectivity and aggression robustly predict suicidal behavior, (ii) that socio-emotional influences disrupt
fronto-limbic brain activity subserving cognitive control in BPD, and (iii) that suicidal behavior is associated with
behavioral and neurocomputational alterations in social and non-social decision-making. The proposed
research builds on clinical theory and experimental data that characterize BPD patients as interpersonally
hypersensitive, often distorting social cues, forming extreme opinions of others, and misattributing
malevolence. Perceived rejection, abandonment, or betrayal trigger aggression and negative emotional
responses that can lead to a suicidal crisis. To explicate further the mechanisms underlying this escalation, we
will test a conceptual model that views maladaptive responses to social stressors in terms of Pavlovian
interference with goal-directed decision processes. We will thus test the overarching hypothesis that, in an
interpersonal context, emotionally potent cues overshadow patients’ representations of strategic goals and
distort the expected value of their actions. This work bridges three units of analysis: prospective predictors of
high-lethality suicide attempts in our high-risk cohort, the focus of much of our prior research (Aim 1; between-
persons); behavioral and affective signatures of the socio-emotional diathesis to suicidal behavior in daily life
captured via experience sampling (Aim 2; within-person); and neural underpinnings of maladaptive social
decision-making assessed by functional MRI augmented with a reinforcement learning computational model
(Aim 3; within-person). A key strength of continuing work with this BPD cohort with a longitudinally ascertained
high risk of suicidal behavior is that many participants are now entering midlife, when impulsive suicidal acts
become less common, but the risk of serious suicidal acts increases. This is also a time of transition for our
longitudinal study with Aims 2 and 3 introducing significant innovation into the work and with new investigators
contributing expertise in suicide risk (Dombrovski, Szanto), BPD and experience sampling (Hallquist, Pilkonis,
Wright), imaging and computational modeling (Dombrovski, Hallquist), and quantitative methods (Hallquist,
Wright). The proposed study addresses the #1 question of the Prioritized Research Agenda for Suicide
Prevention, Why do people become suicidal? Neurocomputational constructs of prediction error (in a social
context) and expected value assessed in Aim 3 directly refle...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9937829
- **Project number:** 5R01MH048463-27
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH
- **Principal Investigator:** Alexandre Y. Dombrovski
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $674,216
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 1992-09-30 → 2022-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9937829

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9937829, PSYCHOBIOLOGY OF SUICIDAL BEHAVIOR IN BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER (5R01MH048463-27). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9937829. Licensed CC0.

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