Suicidal Risk is Associated with Hyper-Connections in the Frontal-Parietal Network in Patients with Depression

Out on PubMed, from authors in China, is this paper:

Suicidal risk is associated with hyper-connections in the frontal-parietal network in patients with depression.

Ren Y, Li M, Yang C, Jiang W, Wu H, Pan R, Yang Z, Wang X, Wang W, Wang W, Jin W, Ma X, Liu H, Li R.Transl Psychiatry. 2025 Feb 12;15(1):49. doi: 10.1038/s41398-025-03249-y.PMID: 39939611

The abstract is copied below:

Suicide is a complex behavior strongly associated with depression. Despite extensive research, an objective biomarker for evaluating suicide risk precisely and timely is still lacking. Using the precision resting-state fMRI method, we studied 61 depressive patients with suicide ideation (SI) or suicide attempt (SA), and 35 patients without SI to explore functional biomarkers of suicide risk. Among them, 21 participants also completed electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) treatment, allowing the examination of functional changes across different risk states within the same individual. Functional networks were localized in each subject using resting-state fMRI and then an individualized connectome was constructed to represent the subject's functional brain organization. We identified a set of connections that track suicide risk (r = 0.41, p = 0.001) and found that these risk-associated connections were hyper-connected in the frontoparietal network (FPN, p = 0.008, Cohen's d = 0.58) in patients with suicide risk compared to those without. Moreover, ECT treatment significantly reduced (p = 0.001, Cohen's d = 0.56) and normalized these FPN hyper-connections. These findings suggest that connections involving FPN may constitute an important biomarker for evaluating suicide risk and may provide potential targets for interventions such as non-invasive brain stimulation.

The paper is here.

And from the text:

Here is a new functional connectivity study looking at suicidality and ECT's ability to relieve it. The two reported findings are a connectivity signature of suicidality at baseline, and normalization with ECT. There are many caveats and limitations here, so this must be regarded as very preliminary, and, of, course, needing replication.