Objective: To review and reformulate the concept of borderline personality disorder in the light of advances in neuroscience and infant development.Method: Medline was searched using the key words: borderline personality, attachment, affect regulation, neurobiology, childhood sexual abuse, mood stabilizers.Results: There are genetic predispositions to specific personality traits whi...

Abnormalities in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) have been the most consistently demonstrated biological markers in depressive illness. Numerous other neuroendocrine disturbances have also been described, including blunted clonidine-induced growth hormone release and blunted fenfluramine-induced prolactin release. These disturbances are generally interpreted in terms of monoaminer...

The concept of allostatic load (AL) represents the cost of the continual adjustment of the internal milieu required by an organism to adapt to different challenges. The majority of studies concerning AL have focused mainly on identifying its biological components. Recently, new criteria for a clinimetric evaluation of AL have been introduced, adding a new definition of allostatic overload (AO)....

This Ecstasy/MDMA symposium was held at the Annual Conference of the Australian Psychological Society, Hobart, Tasmania, in September 2008. The Australian government has been funding research into MDMA for many years, and hence there are several Australian groups at the forefront of international research in this field. Included in the studies reported here, were collaborations with universitie...

An individual's eating behaviour is shaped by factors ranging from economic conditions and cultural practices to biological influences. The physiological system controlling appetite appears to be adapted to solving the problem of an unevenness of food supply across time, and is fairly permissive in its response to undereating and overeating. Consequently, when food is abundant, the diet is ener...

The papers in this special section address the phenomena of observed increases in risky behavior during the adolescent period of development. Authors provide well-documented evidence that adolescents are at greater risk for a range of psychological and behavioral problems during this period than at any other time in development. The papers share a developmental and psychobiological perspective ...