Suicidal individuals are constantly submitted to the influence of psychosocial life events that may act as triggers as well as vulnerability factors to the suicidal behaviour. On the other hand, suicidal persons nearly always suffer from psychiatric disorders, and growing evidence suggest that they carry vulnerability traits related to psychological traits and genetic factors. In recent studies we shown that decision makingwas involved in the vulnerability to suicidal behaviour independently from the psychiatric disorders of the patients. We reported that decision making was influenced by several serotonergic genotypes associated with the vulnerability to suicidal behaviour.

First, we will examine the nature of the interactions between candidate genes and environmental factors in the susceptibility to suicide attempts. Some data suggest that the genes coding for 5HTT and BDNF influence role of childhood maltreatment on suicidal risk. Moreover, we investigated the existence of such interactions on the risk of severity of the suicidal behaviour. We created an index of suicidal severity by assessing various characteristics of the suicidal act. We investigated whether this suicidality index was influenced by 5HTT genotypes, history of childhood maltreatment and their combination.

Second, by assessing several cognitive functions including decision making, in suicide attempters, we reported the influence of cognitive functioning on the risk of occurrence of some specific stressful life events and a correlation with childhood early maltreatment.

In conclusion, the data presented here suggest that the relationship between environmental factors, genes and cognitive functioning in suicide attempters are of both interactive and correlative natures.