Reduced CSF concentrations of homovanillic acid and homovanillic acid to 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid ratios in depressed patients: relationship to suicidal behavior and dexamethasone nonsuppression

Abstract

Depressed patients who had attempted suicide (N = 19) had significantly lower CSF homovanillic acid (HVA) levels than patients who had not attempted suicide (N = 8) and control subjects (N = 41). Intergroup levels of 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) were not significantly different. The ratio of CSF HVA to CSF 5-HIAA was significantly lower in both patient groups than in control subjects, and patients who had attempted suicide had CSF HVA/5-HIAA ratios that were nearly 50% those of the control subjects. The combinations of nonsuppression on the dexamethasone suppression test and either a low CSF HVA level or a low CSF HVA/5-HIAA ratio were significantly more common among patients who had attempted suicide than among those who had not.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 191 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.