A new study confirms the link between inflammation of the brain and the prevalence of suicidal thoughts in people diagnosed with major depression. This is the first study of its kind to measure relevant biomarkers in living individuals.
Major depression is a very common mental condition, with
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), depression is also currently the
Some people diagnosed with major depression experience suicidal thoughts, which may result in suicide attempts. In the U.S., “suicide is the
Dr. Peter Talbot and other researchers based at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom have conducted a study testing the levels of a biomarker associated with brain inflammation in the systems of people diagnosed with clinical depression.
The scientists’ findings were reported in the journal Biological Psychiatry.
“This paper is an important addition to the view that inflammation is a feature of the neurobiology of a subgroup of depressed patients […] with suicidal ideation,” says journal editor Dr. John Krystal.
“This observation,” he continues, “is particularly important in light of recent evidence supporting a personalized medicine approach to depression, i.e., that anti-inflammatory drugs may have antidepressant effects that are limited to patients with demonstrable inflammation.”
Dr. Talbot and colleagues measured the levels of
In the brain, elevated TSPO levels activate the
They worked with 14 people with moderate or severe depression not using antidepressants. Positron emission tomography was used to scan the participants’ brains and identify signs of inflammation.
People with depression who were experiencing suicidal thoughts were found to exhibit significantly higher levels of TSPO, associated with microglial activation and indicating inflammation of the brain.
This, the researchers explain, suggests that inflammation is linked specifically with suicidal ideation, and not with depression more generally.
This is the first time that this link has been confirmed in living individuals. Previous studies, the researchers say, have had similar findings, but they only looked at brain tissue extracted after death.
“Our findings are the first results in living depressed patients to suggest that this microglial activation is most prominent in those with suicidal thinking,” Dr. Talbot says.
Where inflammation of the brain was noted, it was usually in a region called the anterior cingulate cortex, which is involved with cognition and emotional processes. This supports previous findings that
Signs of inflammation were also noted, albeit to a smaller degree, in the insula (or insular cortex), which plays a role in regulating emotional function, and in the prefrontal cortex, implicated in cognitive processes related to behavior.
Dr. Talbot explains that
“The field now has two independent reports – our study and a 2015 report by Setiawan and colleagues in Toronto – showing essentially the same thing: that there is evidence for inflammation, more specifically microglial activation, in the brains of living patients during a major depressive episode.”
Dr. Peter Talbot
He adds that the results of the current study warrant “further research into the question of whether novel treatments that reduce microglial activation may be effective in major depression and suicidality.”