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Cortical Plasticity of the Tactile Mirror System in Borderline Personality Disorder

NCT06702215 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 71

Last updated 2026-03-27

No results posted yet for this study

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.

Conditions

  • Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)

Interventions

DEVICE

Cross-modal paired associative stimulation (cm-PAS) protocol

The cross-modal Paired Associative Stimulation (cm-PAS) will consist of a visual stimulus depicting a hand being touched repeatedly paired with a transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) pulse delivered over the right primary somatosensory area, for a total of 150 paired stimuli delivered at a fixed frequency of 0.1 Hz. The time interval between the visual-touch onset and the TMS pulse will be 20 ms for the experimental session and 100 ms for the control session.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • IRCCS Centro San Giovanni di Dio Fatebenefratelli

    lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
SINGLE
Model
CROSSOVER

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Max Age
40 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2023-09-04
Primary Completion
2025-11-07
Completion
2025-11-07

Countries

  • Italy

Study Locations

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Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT06702215 on ClinicalTrials.gov