Gray and white matter differences in adolescents and young adults with prior suicide attempts across bipolar and major depressive disorders
Open accessAbstract
Background Findings regarding brain circuitry abnormalities in suicide attempters (SAs) converge across bipolar disorder (BD) and major depressive disorder (MDD), the most common disorders observed in suicides. These abnormalities appear to be present during adolescence/young adulthood when suicide rates increase steeply, and suicide is a leading cause of death in this age group. Identification of brain circuitry common to adolescent/young adult SAs with BD and MDD is important for generating widely effective early prevention strategies. We examined brain circuitry in SAs in adolescents/young adults across these two disorders.Methods Eighty-three participants (ages 14-25 years), 46 with BD (21 SAs) and 37 with MDD (19 SAs), underwent structural and diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance scanning. Whole-brain analyses compared gray matter (GM) volume and white matter (WM) fractional anisotropy (FA) between SAs and non-suicide attempters (NSAs) across and within BD and MDD (p < 0.005).Results Across and within BD and MDD, SAs showed differences compared to NSAs in ventral prefrontal cortex (PFC) GM volume and fronto-limbic (including uncinate fasciculus (UF)) WM FA. Exploratory analyses showed additional within-disorder differences for BD SAs in dorsolateral PFC (dlPFC) and hippocampus GM volume and UF FA, and for MDD SAs dorsomedial and dlPFC GM and dorsal frontal WM. However, there was no significant interaction between suicide attempt status and diagnosis.Limitations Modest sample size.Conclusions Common fronto-limbic gray and white matter alterations in adolescent/young adult SAs are potential targets for suicide prevention strategies across mood disorders. Preliminary findings of disorder-specific regional findings could suggest diagnostic-specific optimal targets may exist.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Structural MRI evidence indicates reduced ventral prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortex volume in youth reporting STB.
“Structural MRI research suggests reduced volume in the ventral prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortices among youth reporting STB”
From Neural correlates associated with suicide and nonsuicidal self-injury in youth (2021) · cites this paper as [54]
Among adolescents with MDD and BD, suicide attempters show reduced VPFC and OFC gray matter volume relative to non-attempters.
“Among adolescents with MDD and BD (53, 54), suicide attempters show reduced VPFC and OFC GMV relative to MDD and BD non-attempters, respectively.”
From Neural correlates associated with suicide and nonsuicidal self-injury in youth (2021) · cites this paper as [54]
MDD suicide attempters show increased OFC gray matter volume in left BA47 relative to MDD non-attempters and BD attempters and non-attempters.
“MDD suicide attempters exhibit increased OFC GMV (left BA47) relative to MDD non-attempters as well as BD attempters and non-attempters (54).”
From Neural correlates associated with suicide and nonsuicidal self-injury in youth (2021) · cites this paper as [54]
BD suicide attempters have reduced hippocampal and bilateral cerebellum gray matter volume compared to BD non-attempters.
“Outside of the PFC, BD suicide attempters have reduced hippocampal (53, 54) and bilateral cerebellum (53) GMV compared to BD non-attempters.”
From Neural correlates associated with suicide and nonsuicidal self-injury in youth (2021) · cites this paper as [54]
PFC findings are complicated by inconsistent laterality effects.
“Studies on PFC differences, however, are complicated by inconsistent laterality effects (left (54, 55) versus right (53)).”
From Neural correlates associated with suicide and nonsuicidal self-injury in youth (2021) · cites this paper as [54]
Youth STB research is characterized by alterations within prefrontal and limbic systems, where a compromised regulatory system may potentiate suicidal thinking, and perturbations in top-down and bottom-up connections may lead to suicidal behaviors.
“Consistent with Schmaal and colleagues (32), youth STB research is characterized by alterations within prefrontal (53–55) and limbic (62, 75, 102, 103) systems whereby a compromised regulatory system may potentiate suicidal thinking, and perturbations in top-down and bottom-up connections may lead to suicidal behaviors.”
From Neural correlates associated with suicide and nonsuicidal self-injury in youth (2021) · cites this paper as [54]
In mood disorders, a prior suicide attempt is associated with lower fractional anisotropy in frontal-subcortical connections.
“In mood disorders, a prior suicide attempt is associated with lower FA in frontal-subcortical connections (76-79).”
From A brain-centric model of suicidal behavior (2020) · cites this paper as [79]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 59 · Cited by 72
- Authors
- Fan, S., Lippard, E. T. C., Sankar, A., Wallace, A., Johnston, J. A. Y., Wang, F., Pittman, B., Spencer, L., Oquendo, M. A., & Blumberg, H. P.
- Affiliations
- Yale University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Fan, Siyan
- ORCID
- Venue
- Journal of Affective Disorders
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2019-02
- Volume
- 245
- Pages
- 1089-1097
- ISSN
- 0165-0327 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6903411
- OpenAlex
- W2900552088
- Cited by
- 72
- References
- 59
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 17 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 4
- FWCI
- 6.46
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Journal of Affective Disorders (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- NIH (RC1 MH088366, R01 MH69747, R01 MH070902, T32 MH014276, T32DA022975)
- National Center for Advancing Translational Science (UL1TR000142)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Suicide and Self-Harm Studies
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Bipolar Disorder and Treatment
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Keywords
- suicide attempts, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, adolescents, young adults, gray matter volume, white matter fractional anisotropy, ventral prefrontal cortex, uncinate fasciculus, hippocampus, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, suicide prevention
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Bipolar Disorder, Brain, Depressive Disorder, Major, Major Depressive Disorder, Female, Hippocampus, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Organ Size, Suicide, Attempted, Case-Control Studies, Anisotropy, Prefrontal Cortex, Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Young Adult, White Matter, Gray Matter
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
