Researchers Hone in on Suicide Biomarker

the Psychiatry Advisor take:

Dysregulation in the body’s stress response system may be one of the most effective biomarkers of suicide.

Maria A. Oquendo, MD, of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, and colleagues reviewed published literature on biomarkers for suicide, including a range of neurobiological systems implicated in suicide.

These systems include also included the serotonergic system and glutamatergic functions.

Ample evidence was found implicating dysregulation in stress response systems, especially the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, as a diathesis for suicide, the researchers reported in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

But they added that whether serotonergic abnormalities observed in individuals who have died by suicide are independent of stress response abnormalities is an unresolved question.

“Studying these systems in parallel and in the same populations may elucidate the role of each and their interplay, possibly leading to identification of new treatment targets and biological predictors,” the researchers concluded.