ArticlePsychosomatic medicine
Associations between depression and anxiety symptoms and retinal vessel caliber in adolescents and young adults.
Article in Psychosomatic medicine. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 35 citations in OpenAlex.
- Retinal vascular imaging in early life: insights into processes and risk of cardiovascular disease.The Journal of physiology · 2016Pooled it
- Advancing Brain and Body Vascular Imaging in Bipolar Disorder: A Report From the International Society for Bipolar Disorders Vascular Task Force.Bipolar disorders · 2026Review
- Cerebrovascular-mediated dynamic alterations in neurovascular coupling: a key pathological mechanism of depression.Cell & bioscience · 2025Review
- Retinal microvascular abnormalities in major depression.Biomedical papers of the Medical Faculty of the University Palacky, Olomouc, Czechoslovakia · 2024Article
- Depression and Eye Disease-A Narrative Review of Common Underlying Pathophysiological Mechanisms and their Potential Applications.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Review
- Automated Systems for Calculating Arteriovenous Ratio in Retinographies: A Scoping Review.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Neurostructural correlates of retinal microvascular caliber in adolescent bipolar disorder.JCPP advances · 2021Article
- Association of reduced retinal arteriolar tortuosity with depression in older participants from the Northern Ireland Cohort for the Longitudinal Study of Ageing.BMC geriatrics · 2021Article
- Denser Retinal Microvascular Network Is Inversely Associated With Behavioral Outcomes and Sustained Attention in Children.Frontiers in neurology · 2021Article
- Retinal correlates of psychiatric disorders.Therapeutic advances in chronic disease · 2020Review
- The Vessels Shaping Mental Health or Illness.The open neurology journal · 2019Article
- Health-related quality of life in adolescents and the retinal microvascular structure.Scientific reports · 2018Article
- Retinal microvessels reflect familial vulnerability to psychotic symptoms: A comparison of twins discordant for psychotic symptoms and controls.Schizophrenia research · 2015Article
- Anxiety and Depression in Patients With Retinitis Pigmentosa.Journal of vitreoretinal diseasesArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
14 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectivePrevious longitudinal studies suggest that depression and anxiety are associated with risk for cardiovascular disease. The aim of the present study was to test whether an association between depression and anxiety symptoms and retinal vessel caliber, an indicator of subclinical cardiovascular risk, is apparent as early as adolescence and young adulthood.
methodsParticipants were 865 adolescents and young adults who participated in the Brisbane Longitudinal Twin Study and the Twin Eye Study in Tasmania. Participants completed an assessment of depression/anxiety symptoms (the Somatic and Psychological Health Report) when they were 16.5 years old (mean age), and they underwent retinal imaging, on average, 2.5 years later (range, 2 years before to 7 years after the depression/anxiety assessment). Retinal vessel caliber was assessed using computer software.
resultsDepression and anxiety symptoms were associated with wider retinal arteriolar caliber in this sample of adolescents and young adults (β = 0.09, p = .016), even after adjusting for other cardiovascular risk factors (β = 0.08, p = .025). Multiple regression analyses revealed that affective symptoms of depression/anxiety were associated with retinal vessel caliber independently of somatic symptoms.
conclusionsDepression and anxiety symptoms are associated with measurable signs in the retinal microvasculature in early life, suggesting that pathological microvascular mechanisms linking depression/anxiety and cardiovascular disease may be operative from a young age.
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