Natasha Kulviwat, a high school student, conducted groundbreaking research at Columbia University on claudin-5, a protein associated with the blood-brain barrier (BBB), and its potential as a biomarker for suicide risk. Her study revealed elevated levels of claudin-5 in the brains of individuals who died by suicide, indicating a breakdown of the BBB that allows neurotoxic agents to enter brain tissue. This research underscores the link between chronic stress, inflammation, and mental health, suggesting that claudin-5 could lead to new diagnostic tools and treatments for suicide prevention.
PREREQUISITESResearchers, mental health professionals, and students interested in neuroscience, psychiatry, and the biological underpinnings of suicide risk.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/16-old-pocketed-50-000-135300578.htmlNatasha Kulviwat is no ordinary high schooler. Starting last August, she spent six months in the lab at Columbia University studying the brain tissue of people who died by suicide.
Her research investigated if any biomarkers — physical and measurable substances in the brain — might help explain and, perhaps someday, prevent suicide.
https://fluidsbarrierscns.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12987-019-0123-zCytokines create inflammation as a normal part of your immune system's response to pathogens. But your body can also release them when there is no threat — during chronic stress, for example — and that can cause excessive inflammation.
Too much inflammation in the body over time can have many negative effects — it's implicated in conditions like heart disease, cancer, and autoimmune disease. In this case, Kulviwat's research suggests that inflammation affected a specific protein in the brain known as claudin-5.
I have read that chronic stress increases levels of cytokines. It's complicated.Claudin-5 is usually found in cells that make up the blood-brain barrier (BBB) — playing an important role in regulating what substances can pass from the blood into brain cells.
But Kulviwat found elevated levels of claudin-5 in other parts of the brain — in the neurons and microvessels — of those who died by suicide, indicating there was a breakdown of the BBB.
That means foreign agents in the blood can now get into functional areas of the brain, which can be neurotoxic, she said. The results suggest elevated levels of claudin-5 in the brain might serve as a biomarker of suicide risk.