Pharmacotherapy in the treatment of borderline personality disorder

The aim of this study is to bring together the previous studies on pharmacotherapy of borderline disorder from the oldest to the recent ones, mainly focusing on atypical antipsychotic, whose success has been underlined in recent medical literature with peculiar reference to olanzapine. Since the '80 the pharmacotherapy in borderline personality disorder has been playing an increasing role in the interest of scientific community and in the medical practice as indicated by APA guide-lines (2000). Nowadays the pharmacological approach, supported by some experimental outcomes, follow a so called "dimensional" standard. The targets of this standard drug approach are specific psychopathological "dimensions" of the disorder and related neurotransmitters' changes in particular linked to serotoninergic and dopaminergic systems, both supported by experimental outcomes. The psychopathological dimensions to which pharmacological approach is more suitable are impulsiveness and emotional dysregulation. During the last past years, effectiveness of atypical antipsychotic drugs became of major interest in medical treatment of borderline disorder, mainly related to their action toward the serotoninergic and dopaminergic systems.