I couldn't read the article because of a paywall but I'm going to have to really disagree about 'biomarkers for suicide'.
Let me give you an example. Say you don't know how to ride a bike. You have brainscans done on your brain and then you learn to ride a bike and go bikeriding for a year. You get another brain scan and guess what! It's different! The brain areas responsible for balance and coordination or motor movement have changed! Do you now say we found biomarkers for riding a bike?
Or, let's say there's a way to accurately measure brain chemical levels. You get yours measured and then sometime later you find your spouse has cheated on you and you're going through a divorce. You're traumatised, angry etc. You get brain chemicals measured again and the levels are different now! Do we say we found biomarkers for a break up?
The logical thing is that something horrific enough happens to people to make them want to kill themselves. The suffering and trauma, the experience of it is changing the brain. Suicide is not a disease or a desire in a vacuum when everything is going fine. This is why fixing whatever causes the suicidal thoughts, if it can be fixed, eliminates suicidal thoughts!
What the stupid mental health field just never learns is that it's not suicidal ideation that needs to be treated as if it's some stand alone disease, but whatever is making the person suicidal. If I could fix my health issues I would not be suicidal and I'm sure a lot of people can agree with me.
I don't believe there are any biomarkers for suicide. These biomarkers are just changes in the brain due to horrific experience. Just like the experience of riding a bike or playing the piano will also change your brain.
Of course I have to say there are exceptions where the brain is inflamed, or physically damaged or diseased like with a virus or somesuch or chemically altered with drugs or whatever which makes people act out of character and have all sorts of strange thoughts.
As someone with mystery chronic illness it fucking pisses me off to hear all this mental health bullshit about how people with chronic illness just need more mental health help and that will stop so many of us from ctb. No dumb cunts, stop trying to push more mental health crap down my throat and use that money to find research into the fucking disease that makes me want to die! Sorry...I'm just very angry at the state of things...
Suicide is a consequence of an existing problem and not inherently a pestilence in itself, which is something that researchers struggle to wrap their heads around. You hit the nail on the head here, and I can relate to the frustration and agony you experience as a consequence of chronic illness.
Boiling it down and simplifying it to, "poor mental health" neglects the intrinsic despair of dealing with an incurable malady. Sadly, many academics cannot grasp this due to their lack of lived experience with permanently ill health- otherwise they wouldn't have a booming career.
The search for biomarkers stems from how those of us in science are taught and trained, unfortunately. Studying neuroscience myself, there is a strong push to try and dissect, organise, and stratify the brain into succinct and clearly defined biological constructs when such an order has yet to be elucidated.
Early on in a life sciences based education, you'll be taught the components of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, their individual structures, and how they function as parts of a whole. We all know the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell due to its ATP production, and that the nucleus contains the majority of a cell's genetic material, the rough endoplasmic reticulum produces and ships out ribosomes, etc.
It is fundamentally impossible at this stage of understanding to apply such a systematic construct of mapping to the brain, yet many scientists make a futile attempt to shove a square peg into a round hole. There is far more that we don't know about the brain compared to what we do posses knowledge of.
It is well established in both animal model studies and human clinical literature that adverse life experiences such as chronic illness, trauma, deprivation, neglect, isolation, and so on and so forth profoundly alter the course of neurodevelopment, and this impact is more salient and prominent the earlier the trauma occurs in a person's lifetime.
Despite- for example, enlarged amydalas being observed in people and mice who have underwent traumatising life experiences such as extreme neglect and abandonment, sexual abuse, violence, and so on and so forth- no "mental health" treatment on the market seeks to address this structural abnormality and place abuse victims in an environment which could have the potential to reshape these synapses.
As long as these memories exist and the problems are ongoing, there is no drug or therapy that could even take a stab at remedying the damage that's been done. It is similar for people in our position with chronic illnesses. The constant demands of life, the shaming for being unable to function at a level that is deemed acceptable, the isolation resulting from being unable to mask one's struggles and wear a mask of devout extroversion.. Of course this reality would drive anyone mad, but all of the current studies have completely missed the plot as to why our lives are full of hardship.
www.the-scientist.com
