Interpersonal life stress and inflammatory reactivity as prospective predictors of suicide attempts in adolescent women
A new study investigates whether social stress-induced proinflammatory cytokine reactivity moderates the prospective association between exposure to interpersonal life stress and suicidal behavior in a sample of at-risk adolescent females.
Adolescent suicidal behavior is often preceded by interpersonal stress , but not all who experience distress attempt to end their lives. Recent theories have postulated that individual differences in stress-related inflammatory reactivity may be associated with risk for psychopathology.
This study examined inflammatory reactivity as a moderator of the potential association between interpersonal stress and adolescent suicidal behavior. Participants included 157 at-risk adolescent females (ages 12 to 16 years) and assessed individual differences in proinflammatory cytokine responses to a brief laboratory-based social stressor, both interpersonal and noninterpersonal life events, and suicidal behavior during a 18-month follow-up.
Measurement of levels of the key proinflammatory cytokines interleukin-1β (IL-1β), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) before and after an experimentally induced social stressor, results revealed that attenuated cytokine reactivity increased the effect of high interpersonal stress exposure on the risk of suicidal behaviors over the next 9 months. No significant effects were revealed for non-interpersonal themed stress.
The findings highlight the urgent need for more research examining reactivity to inflammation among adolescents.
