Serotonergic measures in the brains of suicide victims: 5-HT2 binding sites in the frontal cortex of suicide victims and control subjects.

The authors determined serotonin2 (5-HT2) binding in the frontal cortex of 32 suicide victims and 37 subjects who died from nonpsychiatric causes. The maximum number of binding sites (Bmax) and the affinity (Kd) were significantly higher in subjects who had committed suicide than in control subjects. However, there was no difference in Kd between these two groups after the influence of age, race, sex, and postmortem delay was covaried. The Bmax of subjects who had committed violent suicide was significantly greater than that of control subjects.