Somatostatin Immunoreactivity in Postmortem Brain From Depressed Suicides

To the Editor.—  Bissette and colleagues¹ have reported reduced concentrations of somatostatin immunoreactivity (somatostatin-I) in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from depressed patients (and those with other psychiatric diagnoses) compared with controls, confirming the report by Rubinow and colleagues.² However, it is not clear whether this reduction reflects an alteration in somatostatin concentration in the brain. We have measured somatostatin-I concentrations in the brains of depressed suicides and controls.

Subjects and Methods.—  Depression was diagnosed retrospectively in 12 suicide subjects using the criteria of Beskow and colleagues³ (group 1, endogenous depression; group 2, depressive syndrome in the absence of other psychiatric disorders). Causes of death were carbon monoxide poisoning (n = 4), hanging (n = 4), and drug overdose (n = 4). For comparison, 12 ageand sex-matched controls who died of natural causes (principally myocardial infarction) were also studied. There was no significant difference in delay from death to postmortem examination