Article

[raytamtay3]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/her-brain-tormented-her-and-doctors-could-not-understand-why/2015/09/14/d9d0b788-36c5-11e5-b673-1df005a0fb28_story.html

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[Kwamina]

Hi raytamtay3,

Thanks for sharing this article. It's a very sad story which unfortunately ended in a tragic and unexpected way.

The article also illustrates the importance of getting a proper and early diagnosis so people can get targeted treatment for their BPD. I've selected some parts that particularly stood out to me:

"... .a simple “no” from her mother or friends would result in severe feelings of rejection and abandonment. In other settings, a trivial remark would set off a raging tantrum. To illuminate the regions of the brain involved in regulating these emotions, BPD researchers are focusing on regions responsible for emotional and cognitive function — in particular, the amygdala. Imaging this part of the brain has shown that BPD patients have an overactive amygdala, meaning the “fight or flight” center is kicked into overdrive, provoking stress, anxiety and fear faster and more easily than in other people."

"Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which measures brain activity by tracking blood flow, researchers have shown that people with BPD experience abnormal connectivity between the amygdala and other regions of the brain than other people do. Even the most normal of stimuli — looking at a photo of a serene scene in nature or a simple facial expression — sometimes generated intense, long-lasting emotional reactions in patients with BPD. Their amygdala, it seemed, was overreacting.

Employing another brain imaging technology — positron emission tomography (PET), which uses a radioactive tracer to examine tissue function and metabolism — has shown that BPD patients have abnormalities in the connections forged between the amygdala and other structures."