Quote:
Originally Posted by loramin
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"you have a painful terminal illness with no cure"
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Like untreated major depression?
Remember, for many of these people, treatment isn't realistic. Most can't afford it, half of it doesn't work, and countless more face an unimaginable social stigma, including the prospect of losing their job (military, public safety).
It sounds to me like the proper course of action is to advocate for better treatment and social understanding, rather than try to rob these people of what may very well be their only way out of suffering.
Quote:
Originally Posted by loramin
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Originally Posted by http://www.npr.org/programs/death/980429.death.html
ARANGA: What we really think that is happening in suicide is that the person is unable to inhibit the desire to go ahead and kill himself or herself.
TRUDEAU: After a decade of work studying over 175 brains, the research group in New York has found that the serotonin braking system is defective in many suicide victims. Their brains are anatomically different than the brains of people who have died of natural causes. Specifically, Aranga has discovered a malfunction in the area of the brain right above the eyes called the pre-frontal cortex, the place where executive decisions are made dictating what feelings we will act upon and what feelings we will inhibit.
...
TRUDEAU: Another team member, neuroscientist Mark Underwood (ph), is looking at a different part of the brains of suicide victims, at the back, an area called the brain stem. Enlisting the power of the computer, Underwood counts the number of serotonin nerve cells. There too, the serotonin system looks faulty.
MARK UNDERWOOD, NEUROSCIENTIST, NEW YORK STATE PSYCHIATRIC INSTITUTE: We have found hat there are approximately 30 percent more of these serotonin neurons in the suicide victims than in the controls. To find more neurons would suggest something very fundamental, such that you may in fact be born with your biological risk for suicide behavior. |
It's socially irresponsible of them as clinicians to attribute a difference in the structure and function of serotonergic neurons to "faultiness", when it could very well be that these people have a
clearer conception of the abstract reality of their situation, which is the entire point of the prefrontal cortex in the first place-- abstract, executive cognitions without interference from primordial fight or flight or survival impulses.
Oh wait, they aren't clinicians, they are neuroscientists.
That's not to mention we have NO IDEA how the serotonergic system works at a detailed level and it's totally irresponsible to make the kind of claim they're insinuating.