Research grant for Dr. Esther Opmeer and Prof. Dr. Andre Aleman to get a better understanding in suicidal behavior.
Neural predictors of suicide attempts and effects of treatment: towards clinically
relevant brain data.
Researchers Dr. Esther Opmeer and Prof. Dr. Andre Aleman were awarded with a grant(365.000 euro) from ZonMw to get a better understanding in suicidal behavior.
Summary:
In order to understand suicidal behavior and improve prevention and treatment we need 1) more knowledge about underlying mechanisms, and 2) objective markers of suicidal risk. Altered emotion regulation may play a role, and may be improved through cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for suicidal behavior. On the other hand, CBT may not affect social-cognitive aspects, e.g. taking into account feelings of close others (affective mentalizing).
We will investigate brain activation during emotion regulation and affective mentalizing in people with suicidal behavior. We will also, for the first time, investigate the neural correlates of imagining future positive events. Our measures could yield a sensitive and objective correlate of relevant processes that may not be elicited by clinical interview. We will therefore investigate whether brain activation predicts suicidal behavior. Moreover, we will study neural effects of targeted CBT and whether this is stronger for the individual (emotion regulation) than the social-cognitive processes. The results can inform development of improved interventions.
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