Suicide linked to brain changes

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The brains of people who commit suicide are chemically different to those who die from other causes, a Canadian study has suggested, reports BBC.
Researchers analysed brain tissue from 20 dead people and, in those who killed themselves, they found a higher rate of a process that affects behaviour.
Writing in Biological Psychology, they said it appeared environmental factors played a part in the changes. And they said the discovery opened up a new avenue of research.
This is exciting new evidence that genetic and environmental factors may interact to produce specific and long-lasting modifications in brain circuitsJohn Krystal, Biological Psychiatry editor
The researchers, from the University of Western Ontario, Carleton University and University of Ottawa, analysed tissue from 10 people who had a serious depressive disorder and had committed suicide and 10 who had died suddenly from other causes, such as a heart attack.
They found that the DNA in the suicide group was being chemically modified by a process normally involved in regulating cell development, called methylation.
It is methylation which shuts down the unwanted genes in a cell - so the necessary genes are expressed to make a cell a skin cell rather than, for example, a heart cell.