Association between family history of suicide attempt and neurocognitive functioning in community youth

Abstract

Background: Suicidal behavior is highly familial. Neurocognitive deficits have been proposed as an endophenotype for suicide risk that may contribute to the familial transmission of suicide. Yet, there is a lack of research on the neurocognitive functioning of first-degree biological relatives of suicide attempters. The aim of the present study is to conduct the largest investigation to date of neurocognitive functioning in community youth with a family history of a fatal or nonfatal suicide attempt (FH). Methods: Participants aged 8-21 years from the Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental Cohort completed detailed clinical and neurocognitive evaluations. A subsample of 501 participants with a FH was matched to a comparison group of 3,006 participants without a family history of suicide attempt (no-FH) on age, sex, race, and lifetime depression. Results: After adjusting for multiple comparisons and including relevant clinical and demographic covariates, youth with a FH had significantly lower executive function factor scores (F [1,3432] = 6.63, p = .010) and performed worse on individual tests of attention (F[1,3382] = 7.08, p = .008) and language reasoning (F[1,3387] = 5.12, p = .024) than no-FH youth. Conclusions: Youth with a FH show small differences in executive function, attention, and language reasoning compared to youth without a FH. Further research is warranted to investigate neurocognitive functioning as an endophenotype for suicide risk. Implications for the prevention and treatment of suicidal behaviors are discussed.

Sex Differences in the Prevalence and Clinical Correlates of Suicidal Ideation in Adolescent Patients with Depression in a Large Sample of Chinese

“…A family history of suicide is considered a biological and psychological risk factor for family transmission of suicide behavior [29]; some results exist gender differences [30]. Suicide is highly familial, several studies have shown that family contextual factors and family relationships are identi ed as risk factors for suicide ideation and attempts [31]. Adolescents at higher risk commonly have a history of depressive disorder, a previous suicide attempt, and a family history of psychiatric disorders.…”

Correlates and predictors of the severity of suicidal ideation in adolescence: an examination of brain connectomics and psychosocial characteristics

“…Second, we did not obtain information about family history of STBs. Given previous findings of a significant genetic component predicting suicide attempts (Ruderfer et al., 2019) and neurocognitive differences between youth with a first‐degree biological relative with a history of suicide attempt and matched controls (Jones et al., 2021), obtaining family history of STBs may have yielded important information about subsequent severity of SI. As a related point, recent findings from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study indicate that high family conflict and low parental monitoring are associated with SI (DeVille et al., 2020).…”

Risks and familial coaggregation of death by suicide, accidental death and major psychiatric disorders in first-degree relatives of individuals who died by suicide

“…15 Furthermore, Jones et al discovered that adolescents with a family history of suicide attempts had greater deficits in executive function, attention and language reasoning compared with those without such a family history. 16 Research has identified common genes overlapping with suicide, impulsivity/risk-taking and major psychiatric disorders. A genome-wide association study by Mullins et al of 1683 individuals who had attempted suicide ('attempters') and 2946 who had not ('non-attempters') with schizophrenia, 3264 attempters and 5500 non-attempters with bipolar disorder and 1622 attempters and 8786 non-attempters with major depressive disorder demonstrated that the polygenic risk score for major depression was associated with suicide attempts in all three disorders.…”