Suicidal facts explored in new study

NI Wire

New Delhi

Tue, 05 Aug 2008: 

In a recent research by a team of Canadian Scientists may prove vital for developing the treatment of various mental disorders including ‘suicidal act’ as researchers claim to have found a ‘gene’ inside our cells, which control the anxiety and stress, according to a EurekAlert press release.<>

In a major breakthrough, an international research group, led by Michael Poulter at the University of Western Ontario and Hymie Anisman of Carleton University have found that those who commit suicide have more enhanced level of a particular protein in brain cells than those who died due to heart attacks and other reasons.

‘That’ enhanced level of protein affects the specific genes, which controls stress and anxiety and cause the reason of deep mental depression, as researchers found during the autopsies.

Michael Poulter and his team have conducted several autopsies to study the ‘major’ cause behind the suicide and depression. During study, they have found up to 10 times of higher level of ‘exclusive’ protein in the brain cells of those who had either committed suicide or were in long deep depression.

The Michael’s team claimed that ‘those’ proteins that affect the particular gene become the cause of chemical modification in that gene during the process of ‘epigenomic regulation’ that is called DNA methylation.

“The nature of this chemical modification is long term and hard to reverse, and this fits with depression,” said Dr. Poulter by adding that team has found greater methylation process in the suicide brains than that of the normal.

“This research could help in discovery of effective medicine to tackle depression and suicidal instincts,” said Poulter.

At present, for treating the mental disorder, generally researchers focus on treating chemical imbalances in the brain, which sometimes do not effect in treating depression due to genetic malfunctions.

While researchers believe that with the help of this research an effective medicine can be developed to balance the amount of protein that affects a gene that normally help people to cope up with stress.

However, they are still not sure about the circumstances that affect the level of this protein in brain. They are also not sure about the fact that the people who suffer from major depression, but die from other causes, have the same genetic malfunctions as those who commit suicide.

The research was published in the current issue of ‘Biological Psychiatry’.