Cincinnati Psychoanalytic Institute, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA,
Neuropsychobiology. 2019;78(1):38-47. doi: 10.1159/000498868. Epub 2019 Mar 28.
Seattle-inspired rock and roll superstar Chris Cornell died by suicide in May 2017. In the northern hemisphere, May represents the peak of the widely replicated but still unexplained seasonal spring rhythm in suicide. Years earlier, Cornell had suffered openly from recurrent bouts of severe depression, and his early musical lyrics do indeed suggest an enduring sensitivity to the vicissitudes of depressed and suicidal states. Cornell's most famous song, Black Hole Sun, suggests a mixed mood state, the incidence of which also peaks in the spring. The present work explores Cornell's May suicide from a chronobiologic perspective.
Review of Cornell's lyrics and literature on suicide.
Cornell's lyrics contain clear indicators of mixed depressive and seasonal imagery, highlighting 3 fundamental axioms of suicidology: (1) the yearly suicide rhythm peaks in May in the northern hemisphere, (2) mixed depressive states are particularly lethal, and (3) the suicide risk increases dramatically when recovering from depression and mood turns mixed.
Cornell, in his life and music, left us with a novel and important hypothesis about the spring seasonality of suicide, namely, that the yearly suicide risk becomes maximal when winter turns to spring and there emerges a deadly mixed mood state under a May photoperiod, i.e., the suicide risk is maximal when a Black Hole Sun occurs in May. It is hoped that Cornell's legacy and sensitive hypothesis inspire research into the etiology and treatment of the spring seasonality of suicide risk and mixed mood states.
The Cornell hypothesis was formulated based in part on several speculative inferences regarding the course of his functioning just prior to his suicide.
西雅图摇滚巨星克里斯·康奈尔（Chris Cornell）于 2017 年 5 月自杀身亡。在北半球，5 月代表着自杀季节性春季节律广泛复制但仍未得到解释的高峰。早些年，康奈尔曾公开患有反复发作的严重抑郁症，他早期的音乐歌词确实表明他对抑郁和自杀状态的变化持久敏感。康奈尔最著名的歌曲《Black Hole Sun》暗示了一种混合的情绪状态，这种状态的发生率也在春季达到高峰。本研究从生理节律学的角度探讨了康奈尔 5 月自杀的原因。
回顾康奈尔的歌词和自杀文献。
康奈尔的歌词包含了明显的混合抑郁和季节性意象的指标，突出了自杀学的 3 个基本公理：（1）在北半球，每年的自杀节律在 5 月达到高峰；（2）混合抑郁状态特别致命；（3）从抑郁中恢复并情绪变得混合时，自杀风险急剧增加。
康奈尔在他的生活和音乐中，为我们提供了一个关于自杀季节性的新的重要假设，即当冬季转为春季时，每年的自杀风险达到最大值，并且在 5 月的光周期下出现致命的混合情绪状态，即当 5 月出现“黑洞太阳”时，自杀风险达到最大值。希望康奈尔的遗产和敏感假设能够激发对自杀风险和混合情绪状态季节性的病因和治疗的研究。
康奈尔的假设部分基于对他自杀前功能的几个推测推断。
