An observational study in Major Depressive Disorder, Suicide and Suicidal Ideation, sponsored by Unity Health Toronto. Completed at 1 site in Canada. Open to participants aged 18 Years to 70 Years, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-02-27.
Sponsored by Unity Health Toronto · Observational
The ultimate aim of this study is to identify a biomarker of suicide risk in MDD by measuring the "hedonic spectrum" (pain and reward responsivity), attention and its associated brain structures using brain scans (fMRI and DTI), as well as the stability of markers over time.
The issue of suicide has continued to puzzle researchers in the field of psychiatry. Edwin Shneidman, a prominent researcher on suicide emphasized "the most evident fact about suicidology and suicidal events is that they are multidimensional…containing concomitant biological, sociological, and psychological (interpersonal and intrapsychic)…elements". Yet, no study to date has attempted to integrate these dimensions when evaluating suicide risk. Considering the presence of a psychiatric illness is a primary predictor of suicide, it is important to develop a unified understanding of risk factors that integrate current clinical and neurobiological findings in this population.
Our aim is to: (1) identify an integrated biomarker model to predict risk of suicide attempt in patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) with and without a history of suicide attempt, using neuroimaging, neurocognitive testing and behavioural tasks, and (2) test the stability of this model using a prospective 1 year design.
2,741 studies on the registry are indexed under Depressive Disorder, Major; 559 are open to participants now.
This study's enrollment of 97 is below the median of 140 across 357 observational studies indexed under Depressive Disorder, Major.
Browse Depressive Disorder, Major studies →Unity Health Toronto is the lead sponsor of 434 studies on the registry; 76 are open to participants now.
Of its 5 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 1 (20%) have results posted.
Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.
Subjects will recruited from Mental Health Clinics at St. Michael's Hospital from Mood Disorders Clinics, University Health Networks (UHN) hospitals, and self-referrals from advertisements in Mental Health Department, and on social media.
Exclusion Criteria:
Subjects will have MDD with current MDE, current suicidal ideation and no lifetime suicide attempts
Other: No intervention
Subjects with have MDD with current MDE, current suicidal ideation and a suicide attempt within the past 6 months
Other: No intervention
Subjects with MDD and current MDE but no current suicidal ideation and a lifetime suicide attempt.
Other: No intervention
Subjects will have no personal or family psychiatric history and no suicide attempts.
Other: No intervention
Biomarkers for Suicide Risk
Potential biomarkers for suicide risk including brain scans, genomic or proteomic makers,
Time frame: 12 months
This study is completed, as verified in Feb 2026. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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Unity Health Toronto