Grant: CIHR Fellowship

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among young adults and among the top ten causes of death across all ages worldwide. Current clinical practice relies mainly on self-report measures and lacks objective tests for assessing suicide risk, resulting in a trial-and error process for early interventions. Our aim is to develop tools that can provide a more objective and accurate way to assess suicide risk and can offer important insights into the associated brain mechanisms, paving the way for more individualized clinical interventions. Our approach combines computerized cognitive tasks with state-of-the-art computational models of the brain to probe specific stress related brain mechanisms that are implicated in suicidality. The tasks are optimized for capturing cognitive and behavioral markers of suicidal ideation, while the models act as a metaphorical microscope allowing us to peer into the underlying brain mechanisms. With this research proposal we aim to validate our recently developed model of suicidality via i) a large-scale behavioral study, which will allow us to identify different subtypes of suicidality that can be revealed through the proposed model and ii) a neuroimaging study, which will allow us to establish the relationships between the model variables and the brain circuits . Both of these studies will serve to test our model predictions and to further refine the model. In their final form, such model-based assays would be readily applicable in clinical practice, requiring minimal time and equipment and enabling more individualized interventions. It would be the first assay of this kind for suicidality, establishing Canada as a world leader in precision psychiatry techniques.