This week, a group of researchers published a new study that demonstrates how a novel brain imaging technique can identify people who have suicidal thoughts, simply by presenting them with certain key words, asking them to reflect on their meanings, and using machine learning to analyze that brain activity.

The results of the study, published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, challenge the common stereotype that suicidal people could change their perspective if they exerted more effort; the data suggests that suicidal feelings and thoughts are deeply intertwined with the way the brain processes information.

“Suicidality isn’t that you can’t cope with life; it’s that you’ve somehow gotten into a pattern of thinking that leads you to consider suicide,” states Marcel Just, a cognitive neuroscientist and the study’s lead author, and a professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon University.

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