We used hippocampal samples from the Quebec Suicide Brain Bank (http://www.douglasrecherche.qc.ca/suicide), which included 12 suicide victims with a history of childhood abuse, 12 suicide victims with a negative history of childhood abuse (matched for psychiatric diagnoses) and 12 controls. All subjects were matched for PMI, gender and age (Table 1). Samples were processed as described previously46 and consisted of hippocampus tissue from male suicides and control subjects of French-Canadian origin, dissected at 4 °C and stored at −80 °C. All subjects died suddenly with no medical or paramedical intervention. Suicides were determined by the Quebec Coroner’s Office and the control subjects were individuals who had died suddenly from causes other than suicide. Homogenates of tissue samples were used for genomic DNA (DNeasy, Qiagen) and RNA (Trizol, Invitrogen) extraction. Possible confounds that were examined included PMI, brain pH and the age of the donor at death. Samples were processed and analyzed blindly with respect to demographic and diagnostic variables. Signed informed consent was obtained from next of kin.
