This book addresses the phenomenology, demographics, and neurobehavioral aspects of suicidal behavior and its risk factors, underscoring common neurobehavioral threads among different approaches which may underlie such extreme behavior. It additionally provides an overview of new approaches, such as imaging techniques to identify at-risk individuals or in response to drug treatment associated with suicidal behavior, neurodevelopmental approaches, genetic and epigenetic linkages to suicidal behavior, animal models of specific risk factors, as well as potential biomarkers being employed to help assess risk.
This book reviews the recent research into biological aspects of suicide behavior and outlines each of the varied, recent approaches to prevent suicide. Suicidal behavior, perhaps, is the most complex behavior that combines biological, social, and psychological factors. A new frontier and new opportunities are opening with the technologies of data acquisition and data analysis. Personalized models based on digital phenotype could provide promising strategies for preventing suicide.
This book will help the reader to understand the suicidal mind from a phenomenological point of view, shedding light on the feelings of suicidal individuals and also those of clinicians. In accordance with the importance that the phenomenological approach attaches to subjectivity and sense of self as the starting points for knowledge, emphasis is placed on the need for the clinician to focus on the subjective experiences of the at-risk individual, to set aside prior assumptions, judgments, or interpretations, and to identify ways of bridging gaps in communication associated with negative emotions. The vital importance of empathy is stressed, drawing attention to the insights offered by neuroimaging studies and the role of mirror neurons in social cognition. It is widely acknowledged that when a clinician meets a person who wants to die by suicide, the clinician does not fully understand what is going on inside the mind of that individual. This book recognizes that any approach to suicide prevention must promote understanding of suicidal thoughts and feelings. The awareness that it fosters and the innovative perspectives that it presents will appeal to a wide readership.
As the ninth leading cause of death in the United States, suicide poses a major public health problem. Rather than scrutinizing the psychological and sociocultural factors that enhance risk, this work, in contrast, focuses on the biological determinants of suicide. It presents recent studies in suicide on basic research models, neurobiological factors, and treatment strategies. A critical theme addressed is the translation of findings from these studies across basic, neurobiological, and treatment domains.
With recent studies using genetic, epigenetic, and other molecular and neurochemical approaches, a new era has begun in understanding pathophysiology of suicide. Emerging evidence suggests that neurobiological factors are not only critical in providing potential risk factors but also provide a promising approach to develop more effective treatment and prevention strategies. The Neurobiological Basis of Suicide discusses the most recent findings in suicide neurobiology. Psychological, psychosocial, and cultural factors are important in determining the risk factors for suicide; however, they offer weak prediction and can be of little clinical use. Interestingly, cognitive characteristics are different among depressed suicidal and depressed nonsuicidal subjects, and could be involved in the development of suicidal behavior. The characterization of the neurobiological basis of suicide is in delineating the risk factors associated with suicide. The Neurobiological Basis of Suicide focuses on how and why these neurobiological factors are crucial in the pathogenic mechanisms of suicidal behavior and how these findings can be transformed into potential therapeutic applications.
This book will help the reader to understand the suicidal mind from a phenomenological point of view, shedding light on the feelings of suicidal individuals and also those of clinicians. In accordance with the importance that the phenomenological approach attaches to subjectivity and sense of self as the starting points for knowledge, emphasis is placed on the need for the clinician to focus on the subjective experiences of the at-risk individual, to set aside prior assumptions, judgments, or interpretations, and to identify ways of bridging gaps in communication associated with negative emotions. The vital importance of empathy is stressed, drawing attention to the insights offered by neuroimaging studies and the role of mirror neurons in social cognition. It is widely acknowledged that when a clinician meets a person who wants to die by suicide, the clinician does not fully understand what is going on inside the mind of that individual. This book recognizes that any approach to suicide prevention must promote understanding of suicidal thoughts and feelings. The awareness that it fosters and the innovative perspectives that it presents will appeal to a wide readership.
Suicide is one of the most important causes of death in modern societies. To develop more effective preventive measures, we have to be aware of and learn more about its neurobiological foundations. In recent years, the tools of modern neurosciences have increasingly been utilized to characterize the pathophysiology of complex human behaviors such as suicide. To improve suicide risk assessment and suicide prevention, a better understanding of its pathophysiology is crucial. This includes research from a variety of disciplines such as neuropsychological, psychosocial and cultural studies but also findings from biochemistry, neuropathology, electrophysiology, immunology, neuroimaging, genetics, and epigenetics. Important results have, for example, been obtained in the field of gene-environment interaction and suicidal behavior. We have just begun to understand how early-life adversity may increase suicide risk by epigenetic mechanisms. Based on such insights, novel therapeutic interventions and preventive measures can be developed. Furthermore, a better understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms involved in suicidal behavior could reveal the mechanism of compounds like lithium salts. In this book, suicidal behavior and its prevention is discussed by international experts in the light of the most recent results from a broad spectrum of neurosciences.