Evolutionary-ethological perspectives of suicide

Current review is discussing such aspects of suicide as possibility of suicide in animals, animals’ behaviors that resemble suicide, ethological correlates of suicide, association between aggression and self-aggression in relation to evolution of behavior, suicide from the evolutionary perspective, evolutionary hypotheses explaining growing suicides, evolutionary aspects of sex differentiation and their relevance for sex differences in suicide rates. Darwinian hypotheses explaining suicide are not very convincing, while alternative hypotheses of evolution, which put forward the role of the environment and imply purposeful changes in genome provide more logical explanations. The most attractive for its’ explanatory power is the psycholamarckizm concept, supplemented with modern knowledge on the role of epigenetic programming by stress and the possibility of transgenerational transfer of stress-induced phenotypes. This conceptual framework may be relevant not only for theoretical purposes but also may be useful for suicide modeling and for the development of more targeted prevention strategies.