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Suicide, especially if it is impulsive and violent, has been associated with decreased serotonin activity. Using microarray screening, researchers examined another possible factor — expression of a variant of the tropomyosin-related kinase B gene (TrkB.T1), expressed only in astrocytes — in the brains of 39 deceased nonpsychotic French-Canadian men. Twenty-eight cases died by suicide, and 11 controls died suddenly, mostly from vehicle accidents or cardiac arrest.
Ten suicide completers had extremely low TrkB.T1 expression in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and other frontal cortical regions but not in the cerebellum. In an analysis of these 10 men and 10 matched controls, the researchers found no differences in methods of brain preparatio…