Alpha-2-adrenoreceptors in depressed suicide attempters: relationship with medical lethality of the attempt

Prevalence of Depression in Animal Model of High Fat Diet Induced Obesity

The prevalence of obesity is substantially increased in developing countries and it is considerably associated with type 2 diabetes (T2DM), dyslipidemia, and hypertension. These symptoms are clustered to form metabolic syndrome. In accordance with the Researchers opinion, obese people are more likely to suffer from depression, a mental affliction that appears due to chronic stress, disturbs thoughts, behavior, and feelings. It has been addressed that the physiological impairments which are undergoing due to obesity can affect the metabolic activities which in turn give impact on brain and affect it’s functioning, because obesity itself seems to constitute a chronic stressful state thus, exacerbates the risk of depression. Present study intended to illuminate the anticipated links between obesity and stress. To make possible the study, animal model of obesity was accomplished by subjecting the Albino wistar rats with energy-dense diet (high fat diet) for 5 weeks; later on, chronic mild stress paradigm was implemented along with high fat feeding for 2 weeks. As expected, high fat feeding increased the adiposity in rodents. Obese animals presented the depressive symptoms more prominent than normal fat feeding rats. Present findings suggest that obesity could increase the depressive symptoms potentially involve in the recruitment of depression.

The LSARS-II: Lethality of Suicide Attempt Rating Scale-Updated

The concept of lethality is essential to the assessment of suicide risk; yet operational definitions of lethality for purposes of its measurement have been loose and varied. A number of scaling measures have been published in the literature, with no relative consensus on the best of these. In addition, only a few of these scales have published data on their psychometric properties. Of these, we argue that the best is the Lethality of Suicide Attempt Rating Scale (LSARS; Smith, Conroy, & Ehler, 1984). Presented here is a significantly revised and redesigned listing of drugs and chemicals and lethal ranges of ingestion (in caps, tabs, or ounces) by body weight to update that scale.

Catecholamine and HPA axis dysfunction in depression: relationship with suicidal behavior

A large body of evidence suggests a potential role for catecholaminergic function as a possible biological factor in the control of suicidal behavior. Recently, we have used a neuroendocrine strategy to study dopaminergic and noradrenergic activities in depressed suicide attempters. However, some problems are associated with the use of growth hormone (GH) response to catecholaminergic challenge, because GH release could be decreased by a direct effect of corticosteroids at the pituitary level. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to assess GH response to both apomorphine, a dopaminergic agonist, and clonidine, an alpha2-adrenergic agonist, according to the dexamethasone suppression test (DST) status in a sample of 20 major depressed inpatients with a history of suicide attempt compared with nonattempters. Our results tended to show that hypercortisolemia as assessed by post-DST cortisol values did not inhibit GH response to apomorphine or clonidine, suggesting that hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis overactivity does not explain the impaired GH response to apomorphine in major depressed patients with a history of suicide attempt.