Abstract
Objectives
Personality disorders (PD) are frequently beheld at the margins of Psychiatry, with some experts proposing that they pose a social problem, rather than a clinical one. There is a growing attention in research addressing neurological soft signs (NSS) and some main psychiatric syndromes (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder), however the data on its relationship with PD has not been methodically explored yet. Our objective is to review the existing literature regarding NSS in PD.
Methods
Review of literature accessible on PubMed database up to April 2021 for the terms “neurological soft signs” and “personality disorders”. Inclusion of original papers in English, related to patients with PD, amounted to 14 studies.
Results
All 14 studies (specifically, 6 mentioning Schizotypal PD (SPD), 5 for Borderline PD (BPD), and 3 on Antisocial PD (APD)) revealed a positive correlation between said psychometrically assessed PD and significant NSS score when compared to healthy controls. The most prevalent findings were related to sensory integration, motor coordination and disinhibition, however no stable pattern was found to be discriminative for any PD subtype.
Conclusions
A meaningful association between NSS and PD (currently only established for SPD, BPD and APD subtypes) hints that a nonfocal central nervous system dysfunction may be present in these disorders, contributing to favour an organicist perspective of PD. Nevertheless, NSS significance as clinical endophenotype or as a vulnerability factor for PD, as it may be for other psychiatric syndromes, is still speculative. Future studies with extended samples could contribute for clarification on this subject.
