Year: 2019
Type: article
Abstract: Suicide is one of the most disastrous outcomes for psychiatric disorders. Recent advances in biological psychiatry have suggested a positive relationship between some specific brain abnormalities and specific symptoms in psychiatric disorders whose organic bases were previously completely unknown. Microglia, immune cells in the brain, are regarded to play crucial roles in brain inflammation by releasing inflammatory mediators and are suggested to contribute to various psychiatric disorders such as depression and schizophrenia. Recently, activated microglia have been suggested to be one of the possible contributing cells to suicide and suicidal behaviors via various mechanisms especially including the tryptophan-kynurenine pathway. Animal model research focusing on psychiatric disorders has a long history, however, there are only limited animal models that can properly express psychiatric symptoms. In particular, to our knowledge, animal models of human suicidal behaviors have not been established. Suicide is believed to be limited to humans, therefore human subjects should be the targets of research despite various ethical and technical limitations. From this perspective, we introduce human biological studies focusing on suicide and microglia. We first present neuropathological studies using the human postmortem brain of suicide victims. Second, we show recent findings based on positron emission tomography (PET) imaging and peripheral blood biomarker analysis on living subjects with suicidal ideation and/or suicide-related behaviors especially focusing on the tryptophan-kynurenine pathway. Finally, we propose future perspectives and tasks to clarify the role of microglia in suicide using multi-dimensional analytical methods focusing on human subjects with suicidal ideation, suicide-related behaviors and suicide victims.
Language: English
Subfield: Biological Psychiatry
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,950
Awards: Development of the multidimensional assessment system for modern-type depression, Translational research of psychiatric disorders focusing on neuron-glia interaction using regenerative medicine techniques, 精神疾患の病態を反映した鑑別診断、重症度予測が可能な血中バイオマーカーの実用化研究, G3940536523, G4208407426, Clarifying the underlying pathophysiology of neuropsychiatric disorders using human-tissues-directly-derived neuronal/glial cells: Reverse-Translational Study., metabomic analysis of mitochondria-ralted diseases, Psychological and psychiatric studies about the prevention and treatment of "modern-type depression", G6459711399, G6809762567, G7078834147, Development of clinical tests to predict the severity of depression or suicidal ideation., Establishment of objective evaluation system for chronic fatigue syndrome using human peripheral blood induced microglia-like cells, Clarifying the underlying mechanisms of schizophrenia focusing on the abnormalities of neuronal activities and immune responses.
OpenAlex ID: W2912835554