RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Suicidal Thoughts, Behaviors, and Event-Related Potentials: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2020.04.29.069005
DO 10.1101/2020.04.29.069005
A1 Gallyer, Austin J.
A1 Dougherty, Sean P.
A1 Burani, Kreshnik
A1 Albanese, Brian J.
A1 Joiner, Thomas E.
A1 Hajcak, Greg
YR 2021
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/05/14/2020.04.29.069005.abstract
AB Background Suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs) are thought to result from, at least in part, abnormalities in various neural systems. Event-related potentials (ERPs) are a useful method for studying neural activity and can be leveraged to study neural deficits related to STBs; however, it is unknown how effective ERPs are at differentiating various STB groups. The present meta-analysis examined how well ERPs can differentiate (a) those with and without suicidal ideation, (b) those with and without suicide attempts, (c) those with different levels of suicide risk, and (d) differences between those with suicide attempts versus those with suicidal ideation only.Method This meta-analysis included 208 effect sizes from 2,517 participants from 27 studies. We used a random-effects meta-analysis using a restricted maximum likelihood estimator with robust variance estimation. We meta-analyzed ERP-STB combinations that had at least three effect sizes across two or more studies.Results A qualitative review found that for each ERP and STB combination, the literature is highly mixed. Our meta-analyses largely did not find significant relationships between STBs and ERPs. We also found that the literature is likely severely underpowered, with most studies only being sufficiently powered to detect unrealistically large effect sizes.Conclusions Our results provided little-to-no support for a reliable relationship between the ERPs assessed and STBs. However, the current literature is severely underpowered, and there are many methodological weaknesses that must be resolved before making this determination. We recommend large-scale collaboration and improvements in measurement practices to combat the issues in this literature.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.