Describes the effectiveness of using blood samples for diagnosing
and preventing persons with suicidal tendencies. Implications of higher
platelet receptor levels; Analysis of neurotransmitter serotonin.
By
Karin Vergoth, published on November 01, 1995
BRAIN
One of the holy grails of psychiatry has been a way to identify
people at high risk of suicide, so that they can be helped.
Now a simple blood test may do what medical records, clinical
interviews, and behavioral tests alone could not. It's based on the fact
that people with suicidal tendencies tend to differ biologically from the
rest of us. It doesn't matter whether a person actually attempted suicide
or just pondered it--both are distinct from their nonsuicidal
counterparts.
Suicide has long been linked to abnormal levels of the
neurotransmitter serotonin (researchers still don't know why). The brains
of suicide victims also have more of a specific type of receptor,
5-HT[sub 2A], that helps relay serotonin messages. Measuring receptor
levels in the living to predict suicide risk was thought impossible,
since it requires a sample of brain tissue. But blood platelets also
contain 5-HT[sub 2A] receptors--and University of Illinois researchers
found that platelet receptor levels mirror those in the brain.
Suicidal patients have higher blood levels of the receptor on
average than do nonsuicidal psychiatric patients or healthy adults,
report Illinois researcher Ghanshyam Pandey, Ph.D., and colleagues in the
American Journal of Psychiatry (Vol. 152, No. 6). And that holds true
whether the patient is depressed, schizophrenic, or manic-depressive.
Remarkably, once a person stops contemplating suicide, blood levels of
the receptor are no different from those of normal and nonsuicidal
folks.
All it takes for the test is an ordinary blood sample and some time
in the lab. The test doesn't predict perfectly, Pandey cautions. "It
could be used in combination with other tests to more accurately identify
suicidal patients," he says. Still, if further studies confirm its
effectiveness, the test could become a routine part of psychiatric
testing.
PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Suicidal tendencies in a tube? A simple
blood test may help psychiatrists identify who's at risk for
suicide.
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