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The Wisdom of Psychopaths
In this engrossing journey into the lives of psychopaths and their infamously crafty behaviors, the renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton reveals that there is a...
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Suicide rates in the U.S. have increased for the first time in a decade, according to a report published in October by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. But what leads a person to commit suicide? Three new studies suggest that the neurological changes in a brain of a suicide victim differ markedly from those in other brains and that these changes develop over the course of a lifetime.
The most common pathway to suicide is through depression, which afflicts two thirds of all people who kill themselves. In October researchers in Canada found that the depressed who commit suicide have an abnormal distribution of receptors for the chemical GABA, one of the most abundant neurotransmitters in the brain. GABA’s role is to inhibit neuron activity. “If you think about the gas pedal and brakes on a car, GABA is the brakes,” explains co-author Michael Poulter, a neuroscientist at the Robarts Research Institute at the University of Western Ontario.
Poulter and his colleagues found that one of the thousands of types of receptors for GABA is underrepresented in the frontopolar cortex of people with major depressive disorder who have committed suicide as compared with nondepressed people who died of other causes. The frontopolar cortex is involved in higher-order thinking, such as decision making. The scientists do not yet know how this abnormality leads to the type of major depression that makes someone suicidal, but “anything that disturbs that system would be predicted to have some sort of important outcome,” Poulter says.
Interestingly, this GABA receptor problem is not the result of abnormal or mutated genes. Rather the change is epigenetic, meaning some environmental influence affected how often the relevant genes were expressed—that is, made into proteins. [For more about epigenetics, see “The New Genetics of Mental Illness,” by Edmund S. Higgins; Scientific American Mind, June/July 2008.] In the frontopolar cortex of suicide brains, the gene for the GABA-A receptor often had a molecule called a methyl group attached to it, the team found. When a methyl group is attached to a gene, it keeps that gene hidden from cells’ protein-building machinery—in this case, preventing the cells from manufacturing GABA-A receptors.
The addition of this methyl tag, called methylation, occurs more extensively in rodents that are handled by humans than in rodents that are not. Less is known about what causes methylation in the human brain, but another recent study suggests it could be related to abuse during childhood. In May researchers at McGill University reported that the gene responsible for creating cells’ protein-building machinery is more frequently methylated in the hippocampus—the brain region responsible for short-term memory and spatial navigation—of depressed suicide victims who suffered child abuse than in the brains of nonsuicide victims who were not abused.
Again, the researchers do not yet know how problems with protein-building machinery lead to depression and suicide. But “it makes sense that if you have some limited capacity for protein synthesis, you gradually are depriving yourself of building critical synapses,” or connections between neurons, which could be important for staying happy, says co-author Moshe Szyf, a pharmacologist at McGill. “Our hypothesis is that there are social events early in life that kind of epigenetically program the brain,” he says. He and his colleagues are now comparing the brains of suicide victims who were abused with those of suicide victims who were not abused to see if their methylation patterns differ.
Even in the womb, epigenetic influences can change the developing brain in ways that increase the risk of eventual suicide. In February 2008 a study revealed that baby boys who are born either short or with low birth weight are more likely to commit violent suicide as adults than longer and heavier babies are, irrespective of their height and weight as adults. Similarly, baby boys born prematurely are four times more likely to attempt violent suicide than those born at full term.
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12 Comments
Add CommentI think the same cause of such biological imbalance, can cure the problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article either fails to mention another study that should be done in connection with this or that study has not been done. The study would be looking at the brains of abuse victims who have not committed suicide. It would be interesting to know if these brains also suffer the same epigenetic changes, and if so what differences took place that caused the individual not to commit suicide, then compare the groups to perhaps develop improved methods of working with the abuse/suicide prone individuals in order to prevent these tragedies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf experiences can cause this abnormal brain pattern, it is likely that remedial experiences will restore a more normal pattern. This effect on rats handled by humans might indicate that learnt helplessnes is a factor as rats can't express their natural avoidance behaviour (hopefully they are not being actually abused by humans...why am I not convinced of that?).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome people aren't born with enough "get-up-and-go-do-good-stuff" chemicals! People find ways to rise above very bad enviroments all the time. I knew a person from long ago, that enjoyed grossing people out about really sick stuff. FACT: This person was "NEVER" abused! This person passed away from cancer some years ago.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI want my tax dollars spent on learning what chemicals are normal and healthy. If you want to learn how to do anything right... the best way is from some one who is sucessful. Some people love watching and reading murders and real trash. Were they born that way?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy wonderful son took his own life almost five years while under the influence of alcohol. He was twenty-five and was being treated for depression at the time. He was very much loved throughout his life, but he was abused in another way. From the time he was five days old he started screaming and continued for a year until a new pediatrician diagnosed him as having colic. The doctor discovered he was missing an enzyme that a person needs to digest milk and milk products. He improved after a diet change but it seemed that a year of being in pain affected him in his life. Can this pain be considered a form of abuse?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is a great magazine.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease remember, another thing that causes suicide is the abuse by mental health professionals. My mother committed suicide with an overdose of librium prescribed by so called "doctors." Their idea of treating the patient is to send them out the door with a prescription. It isn't all brain chemicals. It is the abuse by the system too. You forget, people are still treated as cattle and a number. Define "successful" people, they all have problems too, just better and richer at hiding it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think people should look at the environment, especially the family and the economic model of society (capitalism) Marx already knew of capitalisms destructive effects on the human condition, unfortunately we have too many idiots on the planet today.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think people should look at the environment, especially the family and the economic model of society (capitalism) Marx already knew of capitalisms destructive effects on the human condition, unfortunately we have too many idiots on the planet today.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this<STRONG><a href="http://bestcbstore.com/health&fitness/spiritualhealth/spiritual%20recovery%20from%20narcissistic%20abu.html">NARCISSISTIC PERSONALITY DISORDER, RECOVERY FROM NARCISSTIC ABUSE</a></STRONG>
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGeorgeB--linking suicide rates to "capitalisms destructive effects" is beyond ridiculous. Every economic system has its ups and downs, and more people will commit suicide during hard times, no matter what system they live under.
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