Decision-making balance in suicide: an active inference account

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Computational Psychiatry

Background:

• Suicide motivation is difficult to explain due to its irreversible nature.
• Conventional explanations focus on escaping psychological pain, yet suicide rates remain low, indicating high ambivalence.
• The low incidence of suicide despite its availability suggests significant internal conflict.

Purpose of the Study:

• To conceptualize suicidal decision-making within the active inference framework (AIF).
• To explore the ambivalence inherent in the suicidal mind.
• To provide a theoretical basis for understanding and preventing suicidal behavior.

Main Methods:

• Framing suicide within the active inference framework (AIF), a theory of choice under uncertainty.
• Applying the free-energy principle, which underlies sentient systems, to suicidal behavior.
• Modeling suicidal decision-making as a balance between expected free energy for survival versus suicide action policies.

Main Results:

• The study frames suicidal decision-making through the lens of expected free energy.
• It develops novel intuitions regarding the dynamics of suicidal choices.
• The proposed framework offers a new perspective on the balance between life and death decisions.

Conclusions:

• Active inference provides a suitable framework for understanding the ambivalence in suicidal decision-making.
• The developed intuitions can guide future research into the neurocomputational basis of suicide.
• This approach offers potential avenues for suicide prevention strategies.