Over ten years ago several laboratories reported postmortem studies demonstrating reduced serotonergic activity in suicide victims. In the last four years a series of studies using a variety of approaches have confirmed and extended this finding. It appears that reduced central serotonergic activity is associated with suicidal behavior, not only where there is a diagnosis of a Major Depressive Disorder but, also in association with a range of other psychiatric disorders. The association of a biochemical variable (serotonergic function) with a component behavior (suicidal acts) of several psychiatric disorders, rather than with a particular psychiatric disorder such as a Major Depressive Disorder would demand as rethinking of the basic psychobiological research strategies currently being employed with operate on the assumption that psychobiological correlates should be sought with psychiatric syndromes rather than their component behaviors and symptoms. The second major consequence of these findings is that psychopharmacological treatment approaches should not only be developed for psychiatric syndromes but may also be refined according to the symptom components present. The third result of this research has been the finding of a common biochemical association between aggression and reduced serotonergic function. Suicide may therefore represent a subtype of aggression that is inwardly directed. An important question raised by the studies is whether drugs that reduce suicidal behavior would also be effective in the treatment of aggression. With the mounting incidence of suicide particularly amongst younger people, and the confluence of findings using a variety of research strategies suggesting relatively specific biochemical correlates with suicide, a scientific conference dedicated to research in this area is very timely. We are not aware of such a conference being held in the United States in recent years. This conference is of theoretical and practical importance; its program combines clinical and psychobiological aspects; its goal is to be both heuristic and of immediate therapeutic relevance.
| (1986) Psychobiology of suicidal behavior. Ann N Y Acad Sci 487:1-357 |
