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Predicting the Lethality of Suicide Attempts with PET Scans
Studying PET scans from patients with major depression, all of whom had attempted suicide in the past, researchers from Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute reported in the current issue of Archives of General Psychiatry that abnormal levels of metabolic activity in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) may identify individuals whose suicide attempts are most likely to be fatal.
 The hope is that perhaps screening for metabolic differences will ultimately identify individuals who are at highest risk of dying as a result of a suicide attempt. When comparing PFC regions in low and high risk patients, the higher-risk patients tended to have lower rates of glucose metabolism and appeared to be less responsive to serotonin. The higher-risk patients also tended to be older, less impulsive and more intent on ending their lives.
More studies of this type are recommended but this is an interesting preliminary finding. According to Reuters News (via Medscape Psychiatry), the researchers point out that "perhaps, in the future, refined techniques using more specific methods to visualize the biochemistry of the brain will provide a tool for predicting who is at risk for highly medically damaging suicidal behavior."
11:41:48 PM 
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