False memory in posttraumatic stress disorder and borderline personality disorder

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Clinical Psychology
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and borderline personality disorder (BPD) are linked to increased false memory generation.
• Disentangling disorder-specific false memory in PTSD and BPD requires careful methodology.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate false memory differences between individuals with PTSD, BPD, and healthy controls (HC).
• To utilize the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm to assess false memory tendencies.

Main Methods:

• Participants included individuals with BPD without comorbid PTSD (n=32), PTSD without comorbid BPD (n=28), and HC (n=30).
• A word recognition test using neutral, negative, BPD-related, and PTSD-related word lists was administered.
• The Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm was employed to measure false memory.

Main Results:

• PTSD participants exhibited fewer false memories for neutral word lists compared to HC.
• No significant differences in false memory formation were observed between BPD participants and HC.
• BPD participants showed more false memories for BPD-related and PTSD-related lists compared to PTSD participants.

Conclusions:

• Increased false memory generation in PTSD may not be present in the absence of BPD.
• False memory formation does not appear to differ between individuals with BPD and HC.
• Future research should consider using trauma-individualized material to study false memory in PTSD.