Distinct neural correlates between suicide attempters with major depressive disorder and other psychiatric disorders:...

Suicide attempters (SA) with mild diagnoses other than major depressive disorder (MDD) are underexplored. This study aimed to investigate neuroimaging abnormalities in SA with MDD (SA-MDD), SA with other psychiatric disorders (OPD) (SA-OPD), and healthy controls (HC) using MRI data. Associations between altered findings in the patient groups and anger, negative schema, or rumination were further examined.

We recruited SA who visited the emergency department and divided them into two groups: SA-MDD (n = 52) and SA-OPD (n = 24). Age-, sex-, and education-matched HC) (n = 100) participated in the study. Cortical thickness, surface area, and subcortical volume were measured using structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Regional analysis and seed-based functional connectivity (FC) analyses were performed using resting-state functional MRI. Partial Pearson or Spearman correlation with psychological variables was conducted.

Widespread decreases in cortical thickness and larger cortical surface areas in some regions were observed in both SA-MDD and SA-OPD. However, decreased hippocampal volume was observed only in SA-MDD. Altered FC was more prominent in SA-MDD than in SA-OPD. In addition, significant associations between altered seed-based FC and negative schema were observed in both groups. Importantly, the associations with anger and rumination were evident only in SA-OPD.

These findings suggest that SA-OPD have similar alterations in brain morphometry to SA-MDD but show less prominent FC alterations. The clinical implications of anger and rumination in SA-OPD warrant further investigation.