Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder With rTMS

Not Applicable

Recruiting

• Conditions: Borderline Personality Disorder; Borderline Personality; BPD - Borderline Personality Disorder

• Registration Number: NCT07197502
• Lead Sponsor: University of California, Los Angeles

Brief Summary

This project studies the effectiveness of brain stimulation on borderline personality disorder (BPD) symptoms. This study is blinded, randomized and will enroll up to 30 participants.

Participant will be consented for the study remotely via a secure internet platform called Zoom.

Participants will undergo up to 2 MRI scans, 2 brain wave recording sessions and up to 30 brain stimulation treatments, and complete symptom assessments and cognitive behavioral tasks on a computer. Participation requires minimum of 17 in person visits over the course of 2.5 months.

Participants are randomly assigned active or sham brain stimulation. Participants who received sham brain stimulation have the option to receive additional 15 active brain stimulation session.

Detailed Description

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious and pervasive psychiatric condition with a prevalence of 1-5% among the general population. Two core symptoms of BPD are dysfunctional emotion regulation and marked impulsivity resulting in severe psychological suffering in terms of depression and anxiety as well as maladaptive impulsive acts, particularly self-harming behaviors including suicide. Recent advances in affective neuroscience of BPD combined with progress in brain imaging and neuromodulation technologies have opened new avenues for the development of innovative, brain-based, and more effective treatments for BPD.

This project aims to test the efficacy of a novel circuit-based treatment for BPD. The investigators will utilize multimodal neuroimaging Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), and electroencephalogram (EEG) and BPD-, depression- and anxiety-related clinical scales to objectively measure the impact of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) treatment on overall BPD as well as depressive and anxiety symptom severity. Furthermore, a battery of cognitive tasks will be used to specifically measure the effect of TMS on the neurobehavioral indicators of impulsivity and emotion regulation.

Study Timeline

• Status Verified: 2025-09
• Study First Submitted: 2025-09-18
• Study First Submitted QC: 2025-09-22
• Last Update Submitted: 2025-09-22
• Study First Posted: 2025-09-29
• Last Update Posted: 2025-09-29
• Study Start: 2025-10-01
• Primary Completion: 2027-12-31
• Study Completion: 2027-12-31

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: RECRUITING
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 30

Inclusion Criteria

Not provided

Exclusion Criteria

Not provided

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: CROSSOVER

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Borderline Symptom List 23 (BSL-23)	Baseline (Day 1) and Post treatment (Day 17)	Borderline Symptom List 23 (BSL-23)
Clinical Global Impression for Borderline Personality Disorder (CGI-BPD)	Baseline (Day 1) and Post treatment (Day 17)	Clinical Global Impression for Borderline Personality Disorder (CGI-BPD)
Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS)	Baseline (Day 1) and Post treatment (Day 17)	Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS)

Trial Locations

Locations (2)

Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA; 🇺🇸 Los Angeles, California, United States

Semel Institute/ UCLA TMS; 🇺🇸 Los Angeles, California, United States