PIXABAY, SHAUN_PALMERA subset of children who died from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) had elevated levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin in their blood serum, researchers report today (July 3) in PNAS. The authors say the results add to the evidence that serotonin may be involved in some SIDS cases.
A previous study by the same researchers observed serotonin abnormalities in about 40 percent of SIDS cases, namely, low levels of serotonin in the brainstem. To see what’s happening outside the brain with serotonin, the team measured serotonin levels in the serum of 61 babies who had died of SIDS and compared that to the levels of 15 autopsied controls. They found that one-third of the SIDS cases had serotonin levels two standard deviations higher than the control babies’ levels.
“These findings suggest the potential of a high serum serotonin level as a forensic biomarker at autopsy to differentiate SIDS deaths with serotonergic defects from other causes of sudden death and, importantly, as evidence of a peripheral [serotonin] abnormality in SIDS,” the researchers wrote in ...
