Investigating the association of a selected inflammatory protein panel with suicide attempts in the PsyCourse Study:...

Suicide is a significant global public health issue and expected to contribute increasingly to the global burden of disease over the coming decades. Suicide attempts are much more common than completed suicides and represent a major risk factor for and predictor of suicide. Increasing evidence links suicidal behavior to neuroinflammation, i.e., inflammatory processes in the brain. Therefore, in a subsample (n = 155) of the PsyCourse Study we investigated whether the circulating levels of 12 inflammatory proteins from the Olink® Explore 384 Inflammation Panel are associated with suicide attempts. We found significantly higher interleukin (IL)-1β levels in suicide attempters than in non-suicide attempters. Our finding indicates that the IL-1 signaling pathway plays a critical role in suicidal behavior and suggests that targeting this inflammatory pathway may help prevent suicide. This finding needs to be replicated in a larger sample.