Abstract
Several neurochemical mechanisms can be implicated in suicidal behavior — not as causal factors but rather as biological components of this very complex phenomenon. Most investigators have measured levels of various monoamine metabolites and hormones in body fluids of suicide attempters only. However, completed suicide and attempted suicide have been shown to be statistically distinct on demographic and diagnostic grounds. Another shortcoming of these studies is the various time intervals between the suicidal act and the timing of sampling. In this way, only permanent neurochemical abnormalities could be detected — trait markers. With postmortem sampling shortly after death, we can obtain more accurate information about the actual condition of the central nervous and endocrine systems at the time of death. Encouraged by a recent study (Stanley et al. 1985) and our own preliminary findings (Arató et al. 1985 a), we have tried to use postmortem measurements as a new research tool to explore the neurochemical background of suicides.
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© 1988 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Arató, M. et al. (1988). Postmortem Neurochemical Investigation of Suicide. In: Möller, HJ., Schmidtke, A., Welz, R. (eds) Current Issues of Suicidology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-73358-1_33
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-73358-1_33
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
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