ABSTRACT
Suicidal behavior occurs in the context of a diathesis or predisposition that is characterized by traits in multiple domains: behavioral, clinical, personality, biological, and cognitive (see [1] for an overview). These traits likely have their origins in combinations of genetic and early-life experiences during critical formative periods of development. Thirty years of research have yielded considerable insight into neurobiological dysfunction associated with suicidal behavior as a phenotype and with a number of traits belonging to the diathesis such as impulsive aggression, de”cits in executive function, negative or rigid cognitive processes, and recurrent mood disorders. The major systems where abnormalities have been observed in suicide and nonfatal suicide attempts are the serotonergic system and the stress response systems of the noradrenergic system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis.
