Background
Corpus callosum (CC) size has been associated with cognitive and emotional deficits
in a range of neuropsychiatric and mood disorders. As such deficits are also found
in suicidal behavior, we investigated specifically the association between CC atrophy
and suicidal behavior.
Methods
We studied 435 right-handed individuals without dementia from a cohort of community-dwelling
persons aged 65 years and over (the ESPRIT study). They were divided in three groups:
suicide attempters (n = 21), affective control subjects (AC) (n = 180) without history of suicide attempt but with a history of depression, and healthy
control subjects (HC) (n = 234). T1-weighted magnetic resonance images were traced to measure the midsagittal
areas of the anterior, mid, and posterior CC. Multivariate analysis of covariance
was used to compare CC areas in the three groups.
Results
Multivariate analyses adjusted for age, gender, childhood trauma, head trauma, and
total brain volume showed that the area of the posterior third of CC was significantly
smaller in suicide attempters than in AC (p = .020) and HC (p = .010) individuals. No significant differences were found between AC and HC. No
differences were found for the anterior and mid thirds of the CC.
Conclusions
Our findings emphasize a reduced size of the posterior third of the CC in subjects
with a history of suicide, suggesting a diminished interhemispheric connectivity and
a possible role of CC in the pathophysiology of suicidal behavior. Further studies
are needed to strengthen these results and clarify the underlying cellular changes
leading to these morphometric differences.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: May 02, 2011
Accepted:
February 25,
2011
Received in revised form:
February 9,
2011
Received:
November 22,
2010
Footnotes
Authors FC and PC contributed equally to this work.
Identification
Copyright
© 2011 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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- Evidence for Neurodegeneration and Neuroplasticity as Part of the Neurobiology of SuicideBiological PsychiatryVol. 70Issue 4
- PreviewTwo manuscripts appear in this issue of Biological Psychiatry involving suicide. Ernst et al. (1) found reduced expression of connexin 30 and connexin 43, which regulate calcium transients in the lateral prefrontal cortex of suicide completers. It is thought that astrocytes express connexins and it is argued that altered connexins affect astrocyte function, which could contribute to suicide. Cyprien et al. (2) found that the size of the caudal third of the corpus callosum was reduced in a group of suicide attempters.
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