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Child Abuse May ‘Mark’ Genes In Brains Of Suicide Victims

A team of McGill University scientists has discovered important differences between the brains of suicide victims and so-called normal brains. Although the genetic sequence was identical in the suicide and non-suicide brains, there were differences in their epigenetic marking – a chemical coating influenced by environmental factors.

All of the 13 suicide victims in the study had experienced abuse as children.

“It’s possible the changes in epigenetic markers were caused by the exposure to childhood abuse, although in humans it’s difficult to establish causality between early childhood and epigenetic markers, in the way we have established this in animal subjects,” said Moshe Szyf, a professor in McGill’s Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics. “The big remaining questions are whether scientists could detect similar changes in blood DNA – which could lead to diagnostic tests – and whether we could design interventions to erase these differences in epigenetic markings”.

Social scientist have known for years, at least statistically that abused children were much more likely to become child abusers themselves and predisposed to emotional problems. A horrible cycle to be sure. The idea of a genetic diagnostic tests does raise some concerns about privacy and how far authorities can go in intervening.

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