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A small brain imaging study has found evidence of differences in the brains of people who think about suicide (or have attempted it in the past). Their reactions to certain words produce a distinctive "neural signature":
People who are thinking about killing themselves appear to have distinctive brain activity that can now be measured by a computer. In these people, words like "death" and "trouble" produce a distinctive "neural signature" not found in others, scientists report [DOI: 10.1038/s41562-017-0234-y] [DX] in the journal Nature Human Behaviour. More than 44,000 people commit suicide in the U.S. each year.
"There really is a difference in the way [suicidal] people think about certain concepts," says Marcel Just, an author of the paper and the D.O. Hebb professor of cognitive neuroscience at Carnegie Mellon University. That difference allowed a computer program to distinguish people who thought about suicide from people who did not, more than 90 percent of the time. It also allowed the computer program to distinguish people who had attempted suicide from people who had only thought about it.
The results come from a study of just 34 young adults and will need to be replicated, says Barry Horwitz, chief of brain imaging and modeling at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. But he says they hint at a future in which brain scans and computers can help assess a person's mental health. Horwitz was not involved in the study. "Just looking at behavior is probably inadequate for a lot of purposes," he says. "It's much better to be able to see what the brain is doing."
This represents a potential "biologic indicator of risk" rather than an "educated guess".
Also at The Verge, Suicidal American, and New Atlas.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Wednesday November 01 2017, @03:38AM (3 children)
Death and trouble also probably light up sections of the brain for people like me who like horror and slasher flicks. Am I gonna be labeled suicidal because I want to see Chucky XVII, or Saw IXV?
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Wednesday November 01 2017, @03:40AM (1 child)
Only if you are seeing a therapist who sticks electrodes on your head.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @03:54AM
...or are applying for a job at Foxconn. Apple doesn't like the bad press when someone jumps.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @03:53AM
Most likely, because that is not how you write "95" in Roman Numberals.