Imaging Depression: New Biological Markers May Mean More Targeted Treatments are Just over the Horizon

On a balmy evening in mid-May 2017, Chris Cornell, the legendary head of the internationally renowned rock band Soundgarden, strummed his last chord at the Fox Theater in Detroit and headed to the MGM Grand Hotel. According to the police report, he swallowed a few tablets of the antidepression drug Ativan in his room and called his wife. "I'm just tired," he said and hung up the phone. Later that night, at the request of his concerned wife, his bodyguard forced open Cornell's door to discover him on the bathroom floor, an exercise band tied around his neck. His death was ruled a suicide by hanging, the conclusion of a life riddled with drug abuse and a depression he'd never managed to shake.