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The paper
M.T. Davis et al., “In vivo evidence for dysregulation of mGluR5 as a biomarker of suicidal ideation,” PNAS, 116:11490–95, 2019.
People with major depressive disorder often have other mental health problems, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. But while studying depression a few years ago, Yale University psychiatrist Irina Esterlis noticed that the brains of people with PTSD looked different from those in people with depression alone. In particular, people with PTSD had higher levels of a protein called metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 (mGluR5) on the surface of their brain cells, she says. “That was really odd to us.”
Esterlis and her colleagues wondered whether the receptor, which had recently been linked to suicidal behavior, might tell them something about suicidal thinking, or ideation, in PTSD patients. Using brain scans, the team found that in 29 people with PTSD (some of whom also had depression), “the ...
