THE SUICIDE BRAIN - A REVIEW OF POSTMORTEM RECEPTOR TRANSPORTER BINDING-STUDIES/

The present review summarizes the last 15 years of research involving postmortem receptor/transporter binding studies on brains of suicide v ictims. It is our working hypothesis, on the basis of psychological, b ehavioral and epidemiological studies, that suicidal behavior is an in dependent unique behavioral entity with specific neurochemical charact eristics. This review tries to test this hypothesis at the level of ne urotransmitter receptors by using a different approach to data analysi s. We suggest that this statistical approach, involving multivariate a nalyses, can contribute to the formulation of new hypotheses at the le vel of molecular biology and genetics. Such studies if undertaken in t he future, would help define suicidal behavior as a psycho-neuro-patho logical entity. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.