Cognitive Control Deficits Differentiate Adolescent Suicide Ideators From Attempters

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Adolescent Health

Background:

• Suicidal behaviors are a significant concern in adolescents, with mental illness and suicidal ideation being strong correlates.
• However, only a small fraction of adolescents with these risk factors progress to a suicide attempt, highlighting the need to understand transitional factors.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether deficits in cognitive control, specifically in response to suicide-relevant stimuli, differentiate adolescents who have made suicide attempts from those with only suicidal ideation.
• To identify potential cognitive markers for predicting the transition from suicidal ideation to suicide attempts in adolescents.

Main Methods:

• The study recruited 99 adolescents (aged 13-18) with recent suicidal ideation (n=60) or suicide attempts (n=39).
• Cognitive control was assessed using the Suicide Stroop Task (SST), measuring interference with suicide-related, negative, and positive words.

Main Results:

• Adolescent suicide attempters demonstrated significantly greater interference processing suicide-related and positive emotional stimuli compared to ideators.
• A main effect indicated that attempters, particularly multiple attempters, showed broader deficits in cognitive control for emotional stimuli, irrespective of valence.
• Single attempters did not differ from ideators in Suicide Stroop Task performance.

Conclusions:

• General deficits in cognitive control related to emotional stimuli may serve as a crucial marker for identifying elevated suicide risk in adolescents.
• These findings underscore the importance of assessing cognitive control in the context of emotional processing for at-risk youth.