Suicide markers

How to prevent suicide

Apollinaria Bogolyubova, "Biomolecule"

He is a loyal friend, he is the Prince of Denmark
The immortal monologue repeats,
With the tenacity of fraternal participation,
Calmly-gentle, quiet and strict.
In his smile, strangely long-lasting,
In the deep shadow of black eyes
There is a pool of seductive mystery,
Imperiously attracting us...
(V. Bryusov. The Demon of Suicide, 1910)Bipolar affective disorder is often the cause of suicide [1].

It is not often that a suicide shares his intentions with someone, but now a simple blood test will help to monitor his condition and prevent trouble! American scientists have found "suicide markers" that allow not only to identify people who are prone to suicide, but also to track the emotional state of the patient in dynamics.

More than 1 million people commit suicide every year in the world. In Russia alone, according to 2011 data, 30 thousand people died, but, according to experts, this figure is greatly underestimated [2]. Very often, diseases such as bipolar affective disorder (BAR) and psychoses lead to suicide, and tracking the dynamics of the condition of such patients at the moment is possible only with the help of various psychological tests and in conversation with a psychiatrist. However, it is no secret that people in a state of deep depression, as a rule, do not want to "pour out their soul" and share their fears and experiences with a stranger, and it is also difficult to call them open for a frank conversation. There is an increasingly urgent need to develop a new objective method for assessing a person's condition for his predisposition to suicide, and a big step in this direction was made by a group of scientists from Indiana University (USA), who published an article in the journal Molecular Psychiatry in August this year [3].

Bipolar affective disorder is a mood disorder of a person in which two states are distinguished: manic and depressive. The first is characterized by an increase in mood, psychological and motor arousal of the patient, while the second, on the contrary, is accompanied by a decrease in mood, intellectual and motor activity, difficulty concentrating and low self-esteem. According to modern data, 1-2% of the population suffer from BAR, but it is often impossible to diagnose it before serious symptoms appear and, consequently, to cure it [4].

A typical method of examination of a patient with mental disabilities is as follows: the patient is invited to undergo a simple psychological test at a doctor's appointment, which consists in associating as many words-signals and concepts as possible over a certain period of time (the so-called implicidal associative test, first used in 1998 by E. Greenwald). In one of the studies, words related to life (life, survival, survivor, breathing, etc.) or death (death, deceased, lifeless, suicide, etc.) were taken as signal words, and pronouns ("I", "mine", "mine" or "their" and "they"). In people with an increased risk of suicide, pronouns denoting other people are associated with the words of the lexical group "life", and those denoting themselves – "death" [5].

The level of SAT1 expression in the blood sample of patients during the development of BAR and thoughts of suicide [3].Scientists analyzed blood samples of patients with BAR (it is noteworthy that every third of them attempted to kill themselves at least once) and psychoses for genes showing different expression in patients and healthy donors, as well as changing its level during the development of the disease.

After studying the expression map of nine patients with BAR and comparing it with that of an average healthy person, scientists were able to identify the top 13 markers distinguishing pathological mental state and norm, the palm among which rightfully received the molecule SAT1 - spermidine–spermine N-acetyltransferase involved in polyamine metabolism. The level of its expression in patients with BAR was almost 30% higher than in healthy people! Moreover, by examining blood samples from the same patient with progressive bipolar disorder and, consequently, with an increasing likelihood of suicide (the mental state of patients was assessed on the basis of psychological tests), scientists were able to prove that the level of SAT1 in the blood is directly proportional to the severity of mental illness. The data obtained on a large sample of people with BAR and schizoaffective disorder (almost 90 patients) once again confirmed the possibility of using SAT1 as a biomarker of suicidal state.

So, just a couple of milliliters of blood – and you already know not only your sugar level, but also your psychological state! Is it possible that the whole complexity of the human psyche can be reduced to a couple of dozen markers in the blood? We'll wait and see...

LiteratureWebsite "Health": "Bipolar disorder: manic-depressive psychosis";

2. Suicide statistics;
3. Le-Niculescu H. et al., (2013). Discovery and validation of blood biomarkers for suicidality. Mol. Psych.;
4. Mednovosti: "Bipolar affective disorder: diagnosis, clinic, course, burden of the disease";
5. Nock M.K. et al., (2010). Measuring the suicidal mind implicit cognition predicts suicidal behavior. Psych. Sci. 21, 4511–4517.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru25.11.2013