-
Natasha Kulviwat recently won $50K at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair.
-
She is 16 years old and a high school student with a passion for studying suicide prevention.
-
She investigates the brains of people who have died by suicide to identify biomarkers.
Natasha Kulviwat he is not an ordinary high school student. Starting last August, he spent six months in a Columbia University lab studying the brain tissue of people who committed suicide.
your investigation investigated whether any biomarkers (physical, measurable substances in the brain) could help explain and, perhaps one day, prevent suicide.
In the end, his work earned him the Gordon E. Moore Award for positive results for future generations and $50,000 for college expenses in the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fairan international competition for pre-university students organized by the society for science.
Identification of suicide biomarkers in the human brain
Kulviwat found differences in the brains of 10 people who died by suicide compared to the control group: 10 people who died of other causes.
The brains of those who committed suicide, which were donated for study by their closest relatives, contained a greater number of inflammatory cytokines.
cytokines create inflammation as a normal part of your immune system’s response to pathogens. But your body can also release them when there’s no threat, during chronic periods. stressfor example, and that can cause excessive inflammation.
Too much inflammation in the body over time can have many Negative effects — is involved in conditions such as heart disease, cancerand autoimmune disease. In this case, Kulviwat’s research suggests that the inflammation affected a specific protein in the brain known as claudin-5.
Claudin-5 is usually found in the cells that make up the blood brain barrier (BBB) — play an important role in regulating which substances can pass from the blood to brain cells.
But Kulviwat found elevated levels of claudin-5 in other parts of the brain, in neurons and microvessels, of which committed suicide, indicating that there was a collapse of the BBB.
That means foreign agents in the blood can now enter functional areas of the brain, which can be neurotoxic, he said. The results suggest that elevated levels of claudin-5 in the brain could serve as a biomarker of suicide risk.
Could biomarkers be a new way to measure suicide risk?
According to the Centers for Disease Control and PreventionSuicide risk is usually assessed by looking at things like a history of depression or another Mental illnesslife circumstances such as adverse childhood events either Loss of workand other subjective psychological factors, such as impulsiveness or a sense of hopelessness.
Although deals for suicidal behavior exist, including psychotherapy and medications, suicide rates have increased mainly in the last 20 years. in 2021, more than 48,000 people died by suicide. And there were an estimated 1.7 million attempts.
With suicide being such a big issue public health concernKulviwat’s research joins a number of other studies in search of biomarkers of suicide.
TO research review, published in 2021, found some potential biomarkers, including the chemicals involved in the body stress response or who interact with serotonin – but none of the studies looked at claudin-5.
Kulviwat and other researchers hope that identifying a physiological process involved in suicide—that is, considering suicide as not just a psychological problem—could help more accurately predict who is at risk than current methods and help develop more pharmaceutical treatments. specifically for prevention.
Interestingly, in his research, Kulviwat found that some psychiatric drugs used to help suicidal patients with problems such as depression or anxiety, such as lexapro and benzodiazepines, do not strongly interact with claudin-5, but some anti-inflammatory drugs do. And what is more, in some casespsychiatric medications can even increase risk of suicide.
Kulviwat said, of course, that doesn’t mean we should just give anti-inflammatories to people who may be contemplating suicide. More research is needed, but Kulviwat said he is “trying to see if it’s worth identifying an alternative.”
dr. david fefel is a neurobiologist and professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego. He is also the medical director of the Kadima Institute of Neuropsychiatry, where he uses newer treatments such as ketamine and transcranial magnetic stimulation for mental health conditions. He said Kulviwat’s results were interesting, but noted that they should be treated as correlation, not causation.
Feifel said the brain abnormalities Kulviwat found might be the result of a more fundamental abnormality, and that claudin-5 might not have a direct link to suicide.
“Before they have any impact in the field, their findings need to be replicated in larger samples,” Feifel said.
Kulviwat also noted that his study was “very preliminary” and that the sample size was not that large. But she plans to continue with the investigation.
“I’m going to be a co-author on a National Institute of Health Scholarship with my lab. We’re going to try to dig deeper into this research since the pilot study yielded promising results, and then we’ll see where it takes us.”
Why study suicide?
Currently finishing his third year in high school, Kulviwat started investigating suicide their first year, looking at possible psychological contributors, such as impulsiveness and reduced ability to cope with change.
But for this project, “I wanted to venture into the neurobiological perspective because there aren’t a lot of studies that do that,” he told Insider.
Part of her interest in suicide research stems from her volunteering with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and attending Walks out of the dark — events that help raise awareness and provide support for people who have lost loved ones to suicide.
Hearing different perspectives and questioning why suicide research isn’t making as much progress as other fields, such as cancer or infectious disease, inspired his research, he said.
She said one of the hardest parts of the project was juggling academic responsibilities, her personal life, and lab work. She often had to choose her research over time with friends, working in the lab late at night and during vacations. Kulviwat said, laughing, that she sometimes even had to miss her high school classes to work in the lab.
Whats Next?
Kulviwat already has research in mind for his next project. She plans to see how drugs like anti-inflammatories interact with claudin-5 in an animal model. This research could offer clues to develop alternative treatments in cases of BBB rupture and suicide risk.
She said the prize money is a great help to the university, but overall not much has changed for her. “I’m still like a regular high school student. I haven’t taken my standardized tests yet. I’m still trying to pass my classes, trying to keep my GPA up.”
Kulviwat hopes to attend medical school in the future and become a pediatrician or pediatric psychiatrist.
“To make sure that we have a strong foundation and to make sure that our young people are doing well, I think it’s really imperative to do that, and I think it’s important not to overlook it,” he said.
Read the original article at Business Insider