Suicide and the Social Brain: the Psychobiology of Risk and Protective Factors

This paper proposes a framework for describing the social, biological & psychological risk factors of suicide & their mutual relationships, based on the “social brain” concept. The author describes the increasing evidence that a dysfunction of 2 subsystems in the brain is involved in the development of suicidal behaviour. He also argues that considerable overlap in findings from cognitive psychological & biological studies justifies a psychobiological approach to understanding suicidal behavior. (7 refs)