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Brain Neuropeptidergic Function in Suicide Victims
Author(s) -
ARRANZ BELÉN,
BLENNOW KAJ,
EKMAN ROLF,
ERIKSSON ANDERS,
MARCUSSON JAN
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
human psychopharmacology: clinical and experimental
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.461
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1099-1077
pISSN - 0885-6222
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1099-1077(199611)11:6<451::aid-hup812>3.0.co;2-#
Subject(s) - brain function , function (biology) , medical emergency , medicine , psychology , neuroscience , biology , evolutionary biology
To examine how neuropeptide dysfunction may account for some of the behavioural and physiological alterations observed in depressive illness, neuropeptide Y (NPY), somatostatin (SOM) and corticotropin‐releasing factor (CRF)‐like immunoreactivity (LI), was measured in frontal cortex, gyrus cinguli and hypothalamus from 18 suicide victims and 23 matched controls. A high performance liquid chromatography separation of the NPY immunoreactive fragments was also performed. Overall suicides did not show significant differences with respect to the control group. However, a significant increase in NPY‐LI was noted in the frontal cortex of those suicides dying from carbon monoxide poisoning. The chromatographic characterization showed a distinctly different NPY‐LI peak pattern in the depressed suicides, which suggests the possibility of depression being associated with an alteration in the catabolic products of certain neuropeptidergic systems.